THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


1 


NOVELS  AND  STORIES 

OF 
BRET   HARTE 


THREE  PARTNERS,  OR  THE  BIG  STRIKE  ON 

HEAVY  TREE  HILL 
UNDER  THE  REDWOODS 


PRINTED  BY 
ARRANGEMENT 

WITH 

HOUGHTON 
MIFFLIN 
COMPANY 


THE  JEFFERSON  PRESS 

BOSTON  NEW  YORK 


COPYRIGHT,    1897  AND    I9olt   BY   BRET  HARTB 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


THREE  PARTNERS;  OR,  THE 

BIG   STRIKE   ON   HEAVY 

TREE   HILL 


2039872 


THREE  PARTNERS. 


PROLOGUE. 

THE  sun  was  going  down  on  the  Black 
Spur  Range.  The  red  light  it  had  kindled 
there  was  still  eating  its  way  along  the  ser- 
ried crest,  showing  through  gaps  in  the 
ranks  of  pines,  etching  out  the  interstices  of 
broken  boughs,  fading  away  and  then  flash- 
ing suddenly  out  again  like  sparks  in  burnt- 
up  paper.  Then  the  night  wind  swept 
down  the  whole  mountain  side,  and  began 
its  usual  struggle  with  the  shadows  upclimb- 
ing  from  the  valley,  only  to  lose  itself  in  the 
end  and  be  absorbed  in  the  all-conquering 
darkness.  Yet  for  some  time  the  pines  on 
the  long  slope  of  Heavy  Tree  Hill  mur- 
mured and  protested  with  swaying  arms; 
but  as  the  shadows  stole  upwards,  and  cabin 
after  cabin  and  tunnel  after  tunnel  were 
swallowed  up,  a  complete  silence  followed. 


2  THREE  PARTNERS. 

Only  the  sky  remained  visible  —  a  vast  con- 
cave mirror  of  dull  steel,  in  which  the  stars 
did  not  seem  to  be  set,  but  only  reflected. 

A  single  cabin  door  on  the  crest  of  Heavy 
Tree  Hill  had  remained  open  to  the  wind 
and  darkness.  Then  it  was  slowly  shut  by 
an  invisible  figure,  afterwards  revealed  by 
the  embers  of  the  fire  it  was  stirring.  At 
first  only  this  figure  brooding  over  the 
hearth  was  shown,  but  as  the  flames  leaped 
up,  two  other  figures  could  be  seen  sitting 
motionless  before  it.  When  the  door  was 
shut,  they  acknowledged  that  interruption 
by  slightly  changing  their  position  ;  the  one 
who  had  risen  to  shut  the  door  sank  back 
into  an  invisible  seat,  but  the  attitude  of 
each  man  was  one  of  profound  reflection  or 
reserve,  and  apparently  upon  some  common 
subject  which  made  them  respect  each  other's 
silence.  However,  this  was  at  last  broken 
by  a  laugh.  It  was  a  boyish  laugh,  and 
came  from  the  youngest  of  the  party.  The 
two  others  turned  their  profiles  and  glanced 
inquiringly  towards  him,  but  did  not  speak. 

u  I  was  thinking,"  he  began  in  apologetic 
explanation,  "  how  mighty  queer  it  was  that 
while  we  were  working  like  niggers  on  grub 


THESE  PARTNERS.  3 

wages,  without  the  ghost  of  a  chance  of 
making  a  strike,  how  we  used  to  sit  here, 
night  after  night,  and  flapdoodle  and  specu- 
late about  what  we  'd  do  if  we  ever  did 
make  one  ;  and  now,  Great  Scott !  that  we 
have  made  it,  and  are  just  wallowing  in  gold, 
here  we  are  sitting  as  glum  and  silent  as  if 
we  'd  had  a  washout !  Why,  Lord !  I  re- 
member one  night  —  not  so  long  ago,  either 
—  that  you  two  quarreled  over  the  swell 
hotel  you  were  going  to  stop  at  in  'Frisco, 
and  whether  you  would  n't  strike  straight 
out  for  London  and  Rome  and  Paris,  or 
go  away  to  Japan  and  China  and  round  by 
India  and  the  Red  Sea." 

"  No,  we  did  n't  quarrel  over  it,"  said  one 
of  the  figures  gently ;  "  there  was  only  a 
little  discussion." 

"  Yes,  but  you  did,  though,"  returned  the 
young  fellow  mischievously,  "  and  you  told 
Stacy,  there,  that  we  'd  better  learn  some- 
thing of  the  world  before  we  tried  to  buy  it 
or  even  hire  it,  and  that  it  was  just  as  well 
to  get  the  hayseed  out  of  our  hair  and  the 
slumgullion  off  our  boots  before  we  mixed  in 
polite  society." 

"  Well,  I   don't   see  what 's   the  matter 


4  THREE  PARTNERS. 

with  that  sentiment  now,"  returned  the  sec- 
ond speaker  good-humoredly ;  "  only,"  he 
added  gravely,  "we  didn't  quarrel — God 
forbid !  " 

There  was  something  in  the  speaker's 
tone  which  seemed  to  touch  a  common  chord 
in  their  natures,  and  this  was  voiced  by 
Barker  with  sudden  and  almost  pathetic 
earnestness.  "  I  tell  you  what,  boys,  we 
ought  to  swear  here  to-night  to  always  stand 
by  each  other  —  in  luck  and  out  of  it !  We 
ought  to  hold  ourselves  always  at  each  other's 
call.  We  ought  to  have  a  kind  of  pass- 
word or  signal,  you  know,  by  which  we 
could  summon  each  other  at  any  time  from 
any  quarter  of  the  globe  !  " 

"  Come  off  the  roof,  Barker,"  murmured 
Stacy,  without  lifting  his  eyes  from  the  fire. 
But  Demorest  smiled  and  glanced  tolerantly 
at  the  younger  man. 

"Yes,  but  look  here,  Stacy,"  continued 
Barker,  "  comrades  like  us,  in  the  old  days, 
used  to  do  that  in  times  of  trouble  and 
adventures.  Why  should  n't  we  do  it  in  our 
luck?" 

"  There 's  a  good  deal  in  that,  Barker 
boy,"  said  Demorest,  "  though,  as  a  general 


THREE  PARTNERS.  5 

thing,  passwords  butter  no  parsnips,  and  the 
ordinary,  every-day,  single  yelp  from  a  wolf 
brings  the  whole  pack  together  for  business 
about  as  qaick  as  a  password.  But  you 
cling  to  that  sentiment,  and  put  it  away 
with  your  gold-dust  in  your  belt." 

"  What  I  like  about  Barker  is  his  com- 
modiousness,"  said  Stacy.  "  Here  he  is,  the 
only  man  among  us  that  has  his  future 
fixed  and  his  preemption  lines  laid  out  and 
registered.  He 's  already  got  a  girl  that 
he 's  going  to  marry  and  settle  down  with 
on  the  strength  of  his  luck.  And  I  'd  like 
to  know  what  Kitty  Carter,  when  she 's  Mrs. 
Barker,  would  say  to  her  husband  being 
signaled  for  from  Asia  or  Africa.  I  don't 
seem  to  see  her  tumbling  to  any  password. 
And  when  he  and  she  go  into  a  new  part- 
nership, I  reckon  she  '11  let  the  old  one 
slide." 

"  That 's  just  where  you  're  wrong  I  "  said 
Barker,  with  quickly  rising  color.  "  She  's 
the  sweetest  girl  in  the  world,  and  she  'd  be 
sure  to  understand  our  feelings.  Why,  she 
think',  everything  of  you  two ;  she  was  just 
eager  for  you  to  get  this  claim,  which  has 
put  us  where  we  are,  when  I  held  back,  and 


6  THREE  PARTNERS. 

if  it  had  n't  been  for  her,  by  Jove  1  we 
would  n't  have  had  it." 

"That  was  only  because  she  cared  for 
you"  returned  Stacy,  with  u  half-yawn ; 
"  and  now  that  you  've  got  your  share  she 
is  n't  going  to  take  a  breathless  interest  in 
us.  And,  by  the  way,  I  'd  rather  you  'd 
remind  us  that  we  owe  our  luck,  to  her  than 
that  she  should  ever  remind  you  of  it." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ? "  said  Barker 
quickly.  But  Demorest  here  rose  lazily, 
and,  throwing  a  gigantic  shadow  on  the 
wall,  stood  between  the  two  with  his  back 
to  the  fire.  "  He  means,"  he  said  slowly, 
"  that  you  're  talking  rot,  and  so  is  he. 
However,  as  yours  comes  from  the  heart  and 
his  from  the  head,  I  prefer  yours.  But 
you  're  both  making  me  tired.  Let 's  have 
a  fresh  deal." 

Nobody  ever  dreamed  of  contradicting 
Demorest.  Nevertheless,  Barker  persisted 
eagerly :  "  But  is  n't  it  better  for  us  to  look 
at  this  cheerfully  and  happily  all  round? 
There  's  nothing  criminal  in  our  having 
made  a  strike !  It  seems  to  me,  boyt>  that 
of  all  ways  of  making  money  it 's  the 
squarest  and  most  level ;  nobody  is  the 


THREE  PARTNERS,  1 

poorer  for  it ;  our  luck  brings  no  misfortune 
to  others.  The  gold  was  put  there  ages  ago 
for  anybody  to  find ;  we  found  it.  It  has  n't 
been  tarnished  by  man's  touch  before.  I 
don't  know  how  it  strikes  you,  boys,  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  of  all  gifts  that  are  going 
it  is  the  straightest.  For  whether  we  de- 
serve it  or  not,  it  comes  to  us  first-hand  — 
from  God ! " 

The  two  men  glanced  quickly  at  the 
speaker,  whose  face  flushed  and  then  smiled 
embarrassedly  as  if  ashamed  of  the  enthusi- 
asm into  which  he  had  been  betrayed.  But 
Demorest  did  not  smile,  and  Stacy's  eyes 
shone  in  the  firelight  as  he  said  languidly, 
"  I  never  heard  that  prospecting  was  a  reli- 
gious occupation  before.  But  I  should  n't 
wonder  if  you  're  right,  Barker  boy.  So 
let 's  liquor  up." 

Nevertheless  he  did  not  move,  nor  did  the 
others.  The  fire  leaped  higher,  bringing 
out  the  rude  rafters  and  sternly  economic 
details  of  the  rough  cabin,  and  making  the 
occupants  in  their  seats  before  the  fire  look 
gigantic  by  contrast. 

"Who  shut  the  door?"  said  Demorest 
after  a  pause. 


8  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  I  did,"  said  Barker.  "  I  reckoned  it 
was  getting  cold." 

"  Better  open  it  again,  now  that  the  fire  's 
blazing.  It  will  light  the  way  if  any  of  the 
men  from  below  want  to  drop  in  this  even- 
ing." 

Stacy  stared  at  his  companion.  "  I 
thought  that  it  was  understood  that  we  were 
giving  them  that  dinner  at  Boomville  to- 
morrow night,  so  that  we  might  have  the 
last  evening  here  by  ourselves  in  peace  and 
quietness  ?  " 

"  Yes,  but  if  any  one  did  want  to  come  it 
would  seem  churlish  to  shut  him  out,"  said 
Demorest. 

"  I  reckon  you  're  feeling  very  much  as  I 
am,"  said  Stacy,  "  that  this  good  fortune  is 
rather  crowding  to  us  three  alone.  For  my- 
self, I  know,"  he  continued,  with  a  back- 
ward glance  towards  a  blanketed,  covered 
pile  in  the  corner  of  the  cabin,  "  that  I  feel 
rather  oppressed  by  —  by  —  its  specific 
gravity,  I  calculate  —  and  sort  of  crampy 
and  twitchy  in  the  legs,  as  if  I  ought  to 
*  lite  '  out  and  do  something,  and  yet  it  holds 
me  here.  All  the  same,  I  doubt  if  anybody 
will  come  up  —  except  from  curiosity.  Our 


THREE  PARTNERS.  9 

luck  has  made  them  rather  sore  down  the 
hill,  for  all  they  're  coming  to  the  dinner 
to-morrow." 

"  That 's  only  human  nature,"  said  De- 
morest. 

"  But,"  said  Barker  eagerly,  "  what  does 
it  mean  ?  Why,  only  this  afternoon,  when 
I  was  passing  the  '  Old  Kentuck '  tunnel, 
where  those  Marshalls  have  been  grubbing 
along  for  four  years  without  making  a  single 
strike,  I  felt  ashamed  to  look  at  them,  and 
as  they  barely  nodded  to  me  I  slinked  by 
as  if  I  had  done  them  an  injury.  I  don't 
understand  it." 

"It  somehow  does  not  seem  to  square 
with  this  '  gift  of  God '  idea  of  yours,  does 
it  ?  "  said  Stacy.  "  But  we  '11  open  the  door 
and  give  them  a  show." 

As  he  did  so  it  seemed  as  if  the  night 
were  their  only  guest,  and  had  been  waiting 
on  the  threshold  to  now  enter  bodily  and 
pervade  all  things  with  its  presence.  With 
that  cool,  fragrant  inflow  of  air  they  breathed 
freely.  The  red  edge  had  gone  from  Black 
Spur,  but  it  was  even  more  clearly  defined 
against  the  sky  in  its  towering  blackness. 
The  sky  itself  had  grown  lighter,  although 


10  THREE  PARTNERS. 

the  stars  still  seemed  mere  reflections  of  the 
solitary  pin-points  of  light  scattered  along 
the  concave  valley  below.  Mingling  with 
the  cooler,  restful  air  of  the  summit,  yet 
penetratingly  distinct  from  it,  arose  the 
stimulating  breath  of  the  pines  below,  still 
hot  and  panting  from  the  day-long  sun. 
The  silence  was  intense.  The  far-off  bark- 
ing of  a  dog  on  the  invisible  river-bar  nearly 
a  mile  beneath  them  came  to  them  like  a 
sound  in  a  dream.  They  had  risen,  and, 
standing  in  the  doorway,  by  common  con- 
sent turned  their  faces  to  the  east.  It  was 
the  frequent  attitude  of  the  home-remember- 
ing miner,  and  it  gave  him  the  crowning 
glory  of  the  view.  For,  beyond  the  pine- 
hearsed  summits,  rarely  seen  except  against 
the  evening  sky,  lay  a  thin,  white  cloud  like  a 
dropped  portion  of  the  Milky  Way.  Faint 
with  an  indescribable  pallor,  remote  yet  dis- 
tinct enough  to  assert  itself  above  and  be- 
yond all  surrounding  objects,  it  was  always 
there.  It  was  the  snow-line  of  the  Sierras. 
They  turned  away  and  silently  reseated 
themselves,  the  same  thought  in  the  minds 
of  each.  Here  was  something  they  could 
not  take  away,  something  to  be  left  for- 


THREE  PARTNERS.  11 

ever  and  irretrievably  behind,  —  left  with 
the  healthy  life  they  had  been  leading,  the 
cheerful  endeavor,  the  undying  hopefulness 
which  it  had  fostered  and  blessed.  Was 
what  they  were  taking  away  worth  it  ?  And 
oddly  enough,  frank  and  outspoken  as  they 
had  always  been  to  each  other,  that  common 
thought  remained  unuttered.  Even  Barker 
was  silent ;  perhaps  he  was  also  thinking  of 
Kitty. 

Suddenly  two  figures  appeared  in  the  very 
doorway  of  the  cabin.  The  effect  was  star- 
tling upon  the  partners,  who  had  only  just 
reseated  themselves,  and  for  a  moment  they 
had  forgotten  that  the  narrow  band  of  light 
which  shot  forth  from  the  open  door  ren- 
dered the  darkness  on  either  side  of  it  more 
impenetrable,  and  that  out  of  this  darkness, 
although  themselves  guided  by  the  light,  the 
figures  had  just  emerged.  Yet  one  was 
familiar  enough.  It  was  the  Hill  drunkard, 
Dick  Hall,  or,  as  he  was  called,  "  Whiskey 
Dick,"  or,  indicated  still  more  succinctly  by 
the  Hill  humorists,  "  Alky  Hall." 

Everybody  had  seen  that  sodden,  puffy, 
but  good-humored  face  ;  everybody  had  felt 
the  fiery  exhalations  of  that  enormous  red 


12  THREE  PARTNERS. 

beard,  which  always  seemed  to  be  kept  in  a 
state  of  moist,  unkempt  luxuriance  by  liquor ; 
everybody  knew  the  absurd  dignity  of  man- 
ner and  attempted  precision  of  statement 
with  which  he  was  wont  to  disguise  his  fre- 
quent excesses.  Very  few,  however,  knew, 
or  cared  to  know,  the  pathetic  weariness  and 
chilling  horror  that  sometimes  looked  out  of 
those  bloodshot  eyes. 

He  was  evidently  equally  unprepared  for 
the  three  silent  seated  figures  before  the 
door,  and  for  a  moment  looked  at  them 
blankly  with  the  doubts  of  a  frequently  de- 
ceived perception.  Was  he  sure  that  they 
were  quite  real  ?  He  had  not  dared  to  look 
at  his  companion  for  verification,  but  smiled 
vaguely. 

"  Good-evening,"  said  Demorest  plea- 
santly. 

Whiskey  Dick's  face  brightened.  "  Good- 
evenin',  good-evenin'  yourselves,  boys  —  and 
see  how  you  like  it !  Lemme  interdrush 
my  ole  frien'  William  J.  Steptoe,  of  Red 
Gulch.  Stepsho  —  Steptoe  —  is  shtay — 
ish  stay —  "  He  stopped,  hiccupped,  waved 
his  hand  gravely,  and  with  an  air  of  re- 
proacMul  dignity  concluded,  "  sojourning  for 


THREE  PARTNERS.  13 

the  present  on  the  Bar.  We  wish  to  offer 
our  congrashulashen  and  felish —  felish —  " 
He  paused  again,  and,  leaning  against  the 
door-post,  added  severely,  "  — itations." 

His  companion,  however,  laughed  coarsely, 
and,  pushing  past  Dick,  entered  the  cabin. 
He  was  a  short,  powerful  man,  with  a  closely 
cropped  crust  of  beard  and  hair  that  seemed 
to  adhere  to  his  round  head  like  moss  or 
lichen.  He  cast  a  glance  —  furtive  rather 
than  curious  —  around  the  cabin,  and  said, 
with  a  familiarity  that  had  not  even  good 
humor  to  excuse  it,  "  So  you  're  the  gay  ga- 
loots who  've  made  the  big  strike  ?  Thought 
I  'd  meander  up  the  Hill  with  this  old  bloat 
Alky,  and  drop  in  to  see  the  show.  And 
here  you  are,  feeling  your  oats,  eh  ?  and  not 
caring  any  particular  G — d  d — n  if  school 
keeps  or  not." 

"  Show  Mr.  Steptoe  —  the  whiskey,"  said 
Demorest  to  Stacy.  Then  quietly  addressing 
Dick,  but  ignoring  Steptoe  as  completely  as 
Steptoe  had  ignored  his  unfortunate  com- 
panion, he  said,  "  You  quite  startled  us  at 
first.  We  did  not  see  you  come  up  the 
trail." 

"  No.     We  came  up   the  back  trail  to 


14  THREE  PARTNERS. 

please  Steptoe,  who  wanted  to  see  round  the 
cabin,"  said  Dick,  glancing  nervously  yet 
with  a  forced  indifference  towards  the  whis- 
key which  Stacy  was  offering  to  the  stranger. 

"  What  yer  gettiii'  off  there  ?  "  said  Step- 
toe,  facing  Dick  almost  brutally.  "  You 
know  your  tangled  legs  wouldn't  take  you 
straight  up  the  trail,  and  you  had  to  make 
a  circumbendibus.  Gosh !  if  you  had  n't 
scented  this  licker  at  the  top  you'd  have 
never  found  it." 

"  No  matter  !  I  'm  glad  you  did  find  it, 
Dick,"  said  Demorest,  "  and  I  hope  you  '11 
find  the  liquor  good  enough  to  pay  you  for 
the  trouble." 

Barker  stared  at  Demorest.  This  extraor- 
dinary tolerance  of  the  drunkard  was  some- 
thing new  in  his  partner.  But  at  a  glance 
from  Demorest  he  led  Dick  to  the  demijohn 
and  tin  cup  which  stood  on  a  table  in  the 
corner.  And  in  another  moment  Dick  had 
forgotten  his  companion's  rudeness. 

Demorest  remained  by  the  door,  looking 
out  into  the  darkness. 

"Well,"  said  Steptoe,  putting  down  his 
emptied  cup,  "  trot  out  your  strike.  I 
reckon  our  eyes  are  strong  enough  to  bear 


THREE  PARTNERS.  15 

it  now."  Stacy  drew  the  blanket  from  the 
vague  pile  that  stood  in  the  corner,  and 
discovered  a  deep  tin  prospecting-pan.  It 
was  heaped  with  several  large  fragments 
of  quartz.  At  first  the  marble  whiteness 
of  the  quartz  and  the  glittering  crystals  of 
mica  in  its  veins  were  the  most  noticeable, 
but  as  they  drew  closer  they  could  see  the 
dull  yellow  of  gold  filling  the  decomposed 
and  honeycombed  portion  of  the  rock  as  if 
still  liquid  and  molten.  The  eyes  of  the 
party  sparkled  like  the  mica  —  even  those 
of  Barker  and  Stacy,  who  were  already  fa- 
miliar with  the  treasure. 

"  Which  is  the  richest  chunk  ? "  asked 
Steptoe  in  a  thickening  voice. 

Stacy  pointed  it  out. 

"  Why,  it 's  smaller  than  the  others." 

"  Heft  it  in  your  hand,"  said  Barker, 
with  boyish  enthusiasm. 

The  short,  thick  fingers  of  Steptoe  grasped 
it  with  a  certain  aquiline  suggestion ;  his 
whole  arm  strained  over  it  until  his  face 
grew  purple,  but  he  could  not  lift  it. 

"  Thar  useter  be  a  little  game  in  the 
'Frisco  Mint,"  said  Dick,  restored  to  fluency 
by  his  liquor,  "  when  thar  war  ladies  visit- 


16  THREE  PARTNERS. 

ing  it,  and  that  was  to  offer  to  give  'em  any 
of  those  little  boxes  of  gold  coin,  that  con- 
tained five  thousand  dollars,  ef  they  would 
kindly  lift  it  from  the  counter  and  take  it 
away !  It  was  n't  no  bigger  than  one  of 
these  chunks ;  but  Jiminy !  you  oughter 
have  seed  them  gals  grip  and  heave  on  it, 
and  then  hev  to  give  it  up !  You  see  they 
didn't  know  anything  about  the  paci — 
(hie)  the  speshif — "  He  stopped  with 
great  dignity,  and  added  with  painfid  preci- 
sion, "  the  specific  gravity  of  gold." 

"  Dry  up  !  "  said  Steptoe  roughly.  Then 
turning  to  Stacy  he  said  abruptly,  "  But 
where  's  the  rest  of  it  ?  You  've  got  more 
than  that." 

"  We  sent  it  to  Boomville  this  morning. 
You  see  we  've  sold  out  our  claim  to  a  com- 
pany who  take  it  up  to-morrow,  and  put  up 
a  mill  and  stamps.  In  fact,  it 's  under  their 
charge  now.  They've  got  a  gang  of  men 
on  the  claim  already." 

"  And  what  mout  ye  hev  got  for  it,  if  it 's 
a  fair  question  ?  "  said  Steptoe,  with  a  forced 
smile. 

Stacy  smiled  also.  "  I  don't  know  that 
it 's  a  business  question,"  he  said. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  17 

"  Five  hundred  thousand  dollars,"  said 
Demorest  abruptly  from  the  doorway,  "  and 
a  treble  interest." 

The  eyes  of  the  two  men  met.  There 
was  no  mistaking  the  dull  fire  of  envy  in 
Steptoe's  glance,  but  Demorest  received  it 
with  a  certain  cold  curiosity,  and  turned 
away  as  the  sound  of  arriving  voices  came 
from  without. 

"  Five  hundred  thousand 's  a  big  figger," 
said  Steptoe,  with  a  coarse  laugh,  "  and  I 
don't  wonder  it  makes  you  feel  so  d — d 
sassy.  But  it  was  a  fair  question." 

Unfortunately  it  here  occurred  to  the 
whiskey-stimulated  brain  of  Dick  that  the 
friend  he  had  introduced  was  being  treated 
with  scant  courtesy,  and  he  forgot  his  own 
treatment  by  Steptoe.  Leaning  against  the 
wall  he  waved  a  dignified  rebuke.  "  I  'm 
sashified  my  ole  frien'  is  akshuated  by  only 
businesh  principles."  He  paused,  recol- 
lected himself,  and  added  with  great  preci- 
sion :  "  When  I  say  he  himself  has  a  valu- 
able claim  in  Red  Gulch,  and  to  my  shertain 
knowledge  has  received  offers  —  I  have  said 
enough." 

The  laugh   that   broke   from  Stacy  and 


18  THREE  PARTNERS. 

Barker,  to  whom  the  infelicitous  reputation 
of  Red  Gulch  was  notorious,  did  not  allay 
Steptoe's  irritation.  He  darted  a  vindictive 
glance  at  the  unfortunate  Dick,  but  joined 
in  the  laugh.  "  And  what  was  ye  goin'  to 
do  with  that?"  he  said,  pointing  to  the 
treasure. 

"  Oh,  we  're  taking  that  with  us.  There  's 
a  chunk  for  each  of  us  as  a  memento.  We 
cast  lots  for  the  choice,  and  Demorest  won, 
—  that  one  which  you  could  n't  lift  with  one 
hand,  you  know,"  said  Stacy. 

"  Oh,  could  n't  I  ?  I  reckon  you  ain't 
goin'  to  give  me  the  same  chance  that  they 
did  at  the  Mint,  eh  ?  " 

Although  the  remark  was  accompanied 
with  his  usual  coarse,  familiar  laugh,  there 
was  a  look  in  his  eye  so  inconsequent  in  its 
significance  that  Stacy  would  have  made 
some  reply,  but  at  this  moment  Demorest  re- 
entered  the  cabin,  ushering  in  a  half  dozen 
miners  from  the  Bar  below.  They  were, 
although  youngish  men,  some  of  the  older 
locators  in  the  vicinity,  yet,  through  years 
of  seclusion  and  uneventful  labors,  they  had 
acquired  a  certain  childish  simplicity  of 
thought  and  manner  that  was  alternately 


THREE  PAETNEES.  19 

amusing  and  pathetic.  They  had  never  in- 
truded upon  the  reserve  of  the  three  partners 
of  Heavy  Tree  Hill  before ;  nothing  but  an 
infantine  curiosity,  a  shy  recognition  of  the 
partners'  courtesy  in  inviting  them  with  the 
whole  population  of  Heavy  Tree  to  the 
dinner  the  next  day,  and  the  never-to-be- 
resisted  temptation  of  an  evening  of  "  free 
liquor  "  and  forgetfulness  of  the  past  had 
brought  them  there  now.  Among  them,  and 
yet  not  of  them,  was  a  young  man  who,  al- 
though speaking  English  without  accent,  was 
distinctly  of  a  different  nationality  and  race. 
This,  with  a  certain  neatness  of  dress  and  ar- 
tificial suavity  of  address,  had  gained  him  the 
nickname  of  "  the  Count  "  and  "  Frenchy," 
although  he  was  really  of  Flemish  extraction. 
He  was  the  Union  Ditch  Company's  agent 
on  the  Bar,  by  virtue  of  his  knowledge  of 
languages. 

Barker  uttered  an  exclamation  of  pleasure 
when  he  saw  him.  Himself  the  incarnation 
of  naturalness,  he  had  always  secretly  ad- 
mired this  young  foreigner,  with  his  lac- 
quered smoothness,  although  a  vague  con- 
sciousness that  neither  Stacy  nor  Demorest 
shared  his  feelings  had  restricted  their 


20  THREE  PARTNERS. 

acquaintance.  Nevertheless,  he  was  proud 
now  to  see  the  bow  with  which  Paul  Van 
Loo  entered  the  cabin  as  if  it  were  a  drawing- 
room,  and  perhaps  did  not  reflect  upon  that 
want  of  real  feeling  in  an  act  which  made 
the  others  uncomfortable. 

The  slight  awkwardness  their  entrance 
produced,  however,  was  quickly  forgotten 
when  the  blanket  was  again  lifted  from  the 
pan  of  treasure.  Singularly  enough,  too, 
the  same  feverish  light  came  into  the  eyes  of 
each  as  they  all  gathered  around  this  yellow 
shrine.  Even  the  polite  Paul  rudely  elbowed 
his  way  between  the  others,  though  his  arti- 
ficial "  Pardon  "  seemed  to  Barker  to  con- 
done this  act  of  brutal  instinct.  But  it  was 
more  instructive  to  observe  the  manner  in 
which  the  older  locators  received  this  confir- 
mation of  the  fickle  Fortune  that  had  over- 
looked their  weary  labors  and  years  of 
waiting  to  lavish  her  favors  on  the  new  and 
inexperienced  amateurs.  Yet  as  they  turned 
their  dazzled  eyes  upon  the  three  partners 
there  was  no  envy  or  malice  in  their  depths, 
no  reproach  on  their  lips,  no  insincerity  in 
their  wondering  satisfaction.  Rather  there 
was  a  touching,  almost  childlike  resumption 


THREE  PARTNERS.  21 

of  hope  as  they  gazed  at  this  conclusive  evi- 
dence of  Nature's  bounty.  The  gold  had 
been  there  —  they  had  only  missed  it !  And 
if  there,  more  could  be  found  !  Was  it  not 
a  proof  of  the  richness  of  Heavy  Tree  Hill  ? 
So  strongly  was  this  reflected  on  their  faces 
that  a  casual  observer,  contrasting  them 
with  the  thoughtful  countenances  of  the  real 
owners,  would  have  thought  them  the  lucky 
ones.  It  touched  Barker's  quick  sympathies, 
it  puzzled  Stacy,  it  made  Demorest  more 
serious,  it  aroused  Steptoe's  active  contempt. 
Whiskey  Dick  alone  remained  stolid  and 
impassive  in  a  desperate  attempt  to  pull 
himself  once  more  together.  Eventually  he 
succeeded,  even  to  the  ambitious  achieve- 
ment of  mounting  a  chair  and  lifting  his 
tin  cup  with  a  dangerously  unsteady  hand, 
which  did  not,  however,  affect  his  precision 
of  utterance,  and  said  :  — 

"  Order,  gentlemen !  We  '11  drink  suc- 
cess to  —  to  "  — 

"  The  next  strike  !  "  said  Barker,  leaping 
impetuously  on  another  chair  and  beaming 
upon  the  old  locators  —  "  and  may  it  come 
to  those  who  have  so  long  deserved  it !  " 

His    sincere    and    generous    enthusiasm 


22  THESE  PARTNERS. 

seemed  to  break  the  spell  of  silence  that 
had  fallen  upon  them.  Other  toasts  quickly 
followed.  In  the  general  good  feeling  Bar- 
ker attached  himself  to  Van  Loo  with  his 
usual  boyish  effusion,  and  in  a  burst  of  con- 
fidence imparted  the  secret  of  his  engage- 
ment to  Kitty  Carter.  Van  Loo  listened 
with  polite  attention,  formal  congratulations, 
but  inscrutable  eyes,  that  occasionally  wan- 
dered to  Stacy  and  again  to  the  treasure. 
A  slight  chill  of  disappointment  came  over 
Barker's  quick  sensitiveness.  Perhaps  his 
enthusiasm  had  bored  this  superior  man  of 
the  world.  Perhaps  his  confidences  were 
in  bad  taste !  With  a  new  sense  of  his 
inexperience  he  turned  sadly  away.  Van 
Loo  took  that  opportunity  to  approach 
Stacy. 

"  What 's  all  this  I  hear  of  Barker  being 
engaged  to  Miss  Carter  ?  "  he  said,  with  a 
faintly  superior  smile.  "  Is  it  really  true  ?  " 

"  Yes.  Why  should  n't  it  be  ?  "  returned 
Stacy  bluntly. 

Van  Loo  was  instantly  deprecating  and 
smiling.  "  Why  not,  of  course  ?  But  is  n't 
it  sudden  ?  " 

"  They  have  known  each  other  ever  since 


THREE  PARTNERS.  28 

he 's  been  on  Heavy  Tree  Hill,"  responded 
Stacy. 

"  Ah,  yes !  True,"  said  Van  Loo.  "  But 
now  " 

"  Well  —  he  's  got  money  enough  to 
marry,  and  he  's  going  to  marry." 

"  Rather  young,  is  n't  he  ?  "  said  Van  Loo, 
still  deprecatingly.  "  And  she 's  got  nothing. 
Used  to  wait  on  the  table  at  her  father's 
hotel  in  Boomville,  did  n't  she  ?  " 

"Yes.  What  of  that?  We  all  know 
it." 

"  Of  course.  It 's  an  excellent  thing  for 
her  —  and  her  father.  He  '11  have  a  rich 
son-in-law.  About  two  hundred  thousand 
is  his  share,  is  n't  it  ?  I  suppose  old  Carter 
is  delighted  ?  " 

Stacy  had  thought  this  before,  but  did 
not  care  to  have  it  corroborated  by  this 
superfine  young  foreigner.  "  And  I  don't 
reckon  that  Barker  is  offended  if  he  is,"  he 
said  curtly  as  he  turned  away.  Nevertheless, 
he  felt  irritated  that  one  of  the  three  supe- 
rior partners  of  Heavy  Tree  Hill  should  be 
thought  a  dupe. 

Suddenly  the  conversation  dropped,  the 
laughter  ceased.  Every  one  turned  round, 


24  THESE  PARTNERS. 

and,  by  a  common  instinct,  looked  towards 
the  door.  From  the  obscurity  of  the  hill 
slope  below  came  a  wonderful  tenor  voice, 
modulated  by  distance  and  spiritualized  by 
the  darkness :  — 

"  When  at  some  future  day 
I  shall  be  far  away, 
Thou  wilt  be  weeping, 
Thy  lone  watch  keeping." 

The  men  looked  at  one  another.  "  That 's 
Jack  Hamlin,"  they  said.  "  What 's  he 
doing  here  ?  " 

"  The  wolves  are  gathering  around  fresh 
meat,"  said  Steptoe,  with  his  coarse  laugh  and 
a  glance  at  the  treasure.  "  Did  n't  ye  know 
he  came  over  from  Red  Dog  yesterday  ?  " 

"  Well,  give  Jack  a  fair  show  and  his 
own  game,"  said  one  of  the  old  locators, 
"  and  he  'd  clean  out  that  pile  afore  sun- 
rise." 

"  And  lose  it  next  day,"  added  another. 

"  But  never  turn  a  hair  or  change  a 
muscle  in  either  case,"  said  a  third.  "  Lord ! 
I've  heard  him  sing  away  just  like  that 
when  he  's  been  leaving  the  board  with  five 
thousand  dollars  in  his  pocket,  or  going 
away  stripped  of  his  last  red  cent." 


THREE  PABTNEBS.  25 

Van  Loo,  who  had  been  listening  with  a 
peculiar  smile,  here  said  in  his  most  depre- 
cating manner,  "  Yes,  but  did  you  never 
consider  the  influence  that  such  a  man  has 
on  the  hard-working  tunnelmen,  who  are 
ready  to  gamble  their  whole  week's  earnings 
to  him?  Perhaps  not.  But  I  know  the 
difficulties  of  getting  the  Ditch  rates  from 
these  men  when  he  has  been  in  camp." 

He  glanced  around  him  with  some  impor- 
tance, but  only  a  laugh  followed  his  speech. 
"  Come,  Frenchy,"  said  an  old  locator,  "  you 
only  say  that  because  your  little  brother 
wanted  to  play  with  Jack  like  a  grown  man, 
and  when  Jack  ordered  him  off  the  board 
and  he  became  sassy,  Jack  scooted  him  outer 
the  saloon." 

Van  Loo's  face  reddened  with  an  anger 
that  had  the  apparent  effect  of  removing 
every  trace  of  his  former  polished  repose, 
and  leaving  only  a  hard  outline  beneath. 
At  which  Demorest  interfered  :  — 

"  I  can't  say  that  I  see  much  difference  in 
gambling  by  putting  money  into  a  hole  in 
the  ground  and  expecting  to  take  more  from 
it  than  by  putting  it  on  a  card  for  the  same 
purpose." 


26  THREE  PARTNERS. 

Here  the  ravishing  tenor  voice,  which  had 
been  approaching,  ceased,  and  was  succeeded 
by  a  heart-breaking  and  equally  melodious 
whistling  to  finish  the  bar  of  the  singer's 
song.  And  the  next  moment  Jack  Hamlin 
appeared  in  the  doorway. 

Whatever  was  his  present  financial  condi- 
tion, in  perfect  self-possession  and  charming 
sang-froid  he  fully  bore  out  his  previous 
description.  He  was  as  clean  and  refresh- 
ing looking  as  a  madrono-tree  in  the  dust- 
blown  forest.  An  odor  of  scented  soap  and 
freshly  ironed  linen  was  wafted  from  him  ; 
there  was  scarcely  a  crease  in  his  white 
waistcoat,  nor  a  speck  upon  his  varnished 
shoes.  He  might  have  been  an  auditor  of  the 
previous  conversation,  so  quickly  and  com- 
pletely did  he  seem  to  take  in  the  whole  sit- 
uation at  a  glance.  Perhaps  there  was  an 
extra  tilt  to  his  black-ribboned  Panama  hat, 
and  a  certain  dancing  devilry  in  his  brown 
eyes  —  which  might  also  have  been  an  an- 
swer to  adverse  criticism. 

"  When  I,  his  truth  to  prove,  would  trifle 
with  my  love,"  he  warbled  in  general  contin- 
uance from  the  doorway.  Then  dropping 
cheerfully  hi  to  speech,  he  added,  "  Well, 


THESE  PARTNERS.  27 

boys,  I  am  here  to  welcome  the  little  stran- 
ger, and  to  trust  that  the  family  are  doing 
as  well  as  can  be  expected.  Ah !  there  it 
is  !  Bless  it !  "  he  went  on,  walking  lei- 
surely to  the  treasure.  "  Triplets,  too  !  — 
and  plump  at  that.  Have  you  had  'em 
weighed  ?  " 

Frankness  was  an  essential  quality  of 
Heavy  Tree  Hill.  "  We  were  just  saying, 
Jack,"  said  an  old  locator,  "  that,  giving 
you  a  fair  show  and  your  own  game,  you 
could  manage  to  get  away  with  that  pile 
before  daybreak." 

"  And  I  'm  just  thinking,"  said  Jack 
cheerfully,  "that  there  were  some  of  you 
here  that  could  do  that  without  any  such 
useless  preliminary."  His  brown  eyes  rested 
for  a  moment  on  Steptoe,  but  turning  quite 
abruptly  to  Van  Loo,  he  held  out  his  hand. 
Startled  and  embarrassed  before  the  others, 
the  young  man  at  last  advanced  his,  when 
Jack  coolly  put  his  own,  as  if  forgetfully,  in 
his  pocket.  "  I  thought  you  might  like  to 
know  what  that  little  brother  of  yours  is 
doing,"  he  said  to  Van  Loo,  yet  looking  at 
Steptoe.  "  I  found  him  wandering  about 
the  Hill  here  quite  drunk." 


28  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  I  have  repeatedly  warned  him  "  —  be- 
gan Van  Loo,  reddening. 

"Against  bad  company — I  know,"  sug- 
gested Jack  gayly ;  "  yet  in  spite  of  all  that, 
I  think  he  owes  some  of  his  liquor  to  Steptoe 
yonder." 

"I  never  supposed  the  fool  would  get 
drunk  over  a  glass  of  whiskey  offered  in 
fun,"  said  Steptoe  harshly,  yet  evidently 
quite  as  much  disconcerted  as  angry. 

"  The  trouble  with  Steptoe,"  said  Hamlin, 
thoughtfully  spanning  his  slim  waist  with 
both  hands  as  he  looked  down  at  his  polished 
shoes,  "is  that  he  has  such  a  soft-hearted 
liking  for  all  weaknesses.  Always  wanting 
to  protect  chaps  that  can't  look  after  them- 
selves, whether  it 's  Whiskey  Dick  there 
when  he  has  a  pull  on,  or  some  nigger  when 
he 's  made  a  little  strike,  or  that  straying 
lamb  of  Van  Loo's  when  he  's  puppy  drunk. 
But  you  're  wrong  about  me,  boys.  You 
can't  draw  me  in  any  game  to-night.  This 
is  one  of  my  nights  off,  which  I  devote  ex- 
clusively to  contemplation  and  song.  But," 
he  added,  suddenly  turning  to  his  three  hosts 
with  a  bewildering  and  fascinating  change 
of  expression,  "  I  could  n't  resist  coming 


THREE  PARTNERS.  29 

up  here  to  see  you  and  your  pile,  even  if  I 
never  saw  the  one  or  the  other  before,  and 
am  not  likely  to  see  either  again.  I  believe 
in  luck !  And  it  comes  a  mighty  sight 
oftener  than  a  fellow  thinks  it  does.  But  it 
does  n't  come  to  stay.  So  I  'd  advise  you  to 
keep  your  eyes  skinned,  and  hang  on  to  it 
while  it 's  with  you,  like  grim  death.  So 
long !  " 

Resisting  all  attempts  of  his  hosts  —  who 
had  apparently  fallen  as  suddenly  and  unac- 
countably under  the  magic  of  his  manner 
—  to  detain  him  longer,  he  stepped  lightly 
away,  his  voice  presently  rising  again  in 
melody  as  he  descended  the  hill.  Nor  was 
it  at  all  remarkable  that  the  others,  appar- 
ently drawn  by  the  same  inevitable  magnet- 
ism, were  impelled  to  follow  him,  naturally 
joining  their  voices  with  his,  leaving  Steptoe 
and  Van  Loo  so  markedly  behind  them  alone 
that  they  were  compelled  at  last  in  sheer 
embarrassment  to  close  up  the  rear  of  the 
procession.  In  another  moment  the  cabin 
and  the  three  partners  again  relapsed  into 
the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  night.  With  the 
dying  away  of  the  last  voices  on  the  hillside 
the  old  solitude  reasserted  itself. 


30  THREE  PARTNERS. 

But  since  the  irruption  of  the  strangers 
they  had  lost  their  former  sluggish  contem- 
plation, and  now  busied  themselves  in  prepa- 
ration for  their  early  departure  from  the 
cabin  the  next  morning.  They  had  arranged 
to  spend  the  following  day  and  night  at 
Boomville  and  Carter's  Hotel,  where  they 
were  to  give  their  farewell  dinner  to  Heavy 
Tree  Hill.  They  talked  but  little  together : 
since  the  rebuff  his  enthusiastic  confidences 
had  received  from  Van  Loo,  Barker  had 
been  grave  and  thoughtful,  and  Stacy,  with 
the  irritating  recollection  of  Van  Loo's  criti- 
cisms in  his  mind,  had  refrained  from  his 
usual  rallying  of  Barker.  Oddly  enough, 
they  spoke  chiefly  of  Jack  Hamlin,  —  till 
then  personally  a  stranger  to  them,  on  ac- 
count of  his  inf elix  reputation,  —  and  even 
the  critical  Demorest  expressed  a  wish  they 
had  known  him  before.  "  But  you  never 
know  the  real  value  of  anything  until  you  're 
quitting  it  or  it 's  quitting  you,"  he  added 
sententiously. 

Barker  and  Stacy  both  stared  at  their 
companion.  It  was  unlike  Demorest  to  re- 
gret anything  —  particularly  a  mere  social 
diversion. 


THESE  PAETNEBS.  31 

"  They  say,"  remarked  Stacy,  "  that  if  you 
had  known  Jack  Hamlin  earlier  and  profes- 
sionally, a  great  deal  of  real  value  would 
have  quitted  you  before  he  did." 

"  Don't  repeat  that  rot  flung  out  by  men 
who  have  played  Jack's  game  and  lost,"  re- 
turned Demorest  derisively.  "  I  'd  rather 
trust  him  than  "  —  He  stopped,  glanced 
at  the  meditative  Barker,  and  then  concluded 
abruptly,  "  the  whole  caboodle  of  his  critics." 

They  were  silent  for  a  few  moments,  and 
then  seemed  to  have  fallen  into  their  former 
dreamy  mood  as  they  relapsed  into  their  old 
seats  again.  At  last  Stacy  drew  a  long 
breath.  "  I  wish  we  had  sent  those  nuggets 
off  with  the  others  this  morning." 

"  Why  ?  "  said  Deraorest  suddenly. 

"Why?  Well,  d— n  it  aU!  they  kind 
of  oppress  me,  don't  you  see.  I  seem  to  feel 
'em  here,  on  my  chest  —  all  the  three,"  re- 
turned Stacy  only  half  jocularly.  "  It 's  their 
d — d  specific  gravity,  I  suppose.  I  don't 
like  the  idea  of  sleeping  in  the  same  room 
with  'em.  They  're  altogether  too  much  for 
us  three  men  to  be  left  alone  with." 

"  You  don't  mean  that  you  think  that 
anybody  would  attempt "  —  said  Demorest. 


32  THREE  PARTNERS. 

Stacy  curled  a  fighting  lip  rather  super- 
ciliously. "  No ;  I  don't  think  that  —  I 
rather  wish  I  did.  It 's  the  blessed  chunks 
of  solid  gold  that  seem  to  have  got  us  fast, 
don't  you  know,  and  are  going  to  stick  to 
us  for  good  or  ill.  A  sort  of  Frankenstein 
monster  that  we  've  picked  out  of  a  hole 
from  below." 

"  I  know  just  what  Stacy  means,"  said 
Barker  breathlessly,  rounding  his  gray  eyes. 
"  I  've  felt  it,  too.  Could  n't  we  make  a  sort 
of  cache  of  it  —  bury  it  just  outside  the  cabin 
for  to-night  ?  It  would  be  sort  of  putting  it 
back  into  its  old  place,  you  know,  for  the 
time  being.  It  might  like  it." 

The  other  two  laughed.  "  Rather  rough 
on  Providence,  Barker  boy,"  said  Stacy, 
"  handing  back  the  Heaven-sent  gift  so  soon ! 
Besides,  what 's  to  keep  any  prospector  from 
coming  along  and  making  a  strike  of  it? 
You  know  that 's  mining  law  —  if  you 
have  n't  preempted  the  spot  as  a  claim." 

But  Barker  was  too  staggered  by  this 
material  statement  to  make  any  reply,  and 
Demorest  arose.  "  And  I  feel  that  you  'd 
both  better  be  turning  in,  as  we  've  got  to 
get  up  early."  He  went  to  the  corner  of  the 


THREE  PARTNERS.  33 

cabin,  and  threw  the  blanket  back  over  the 
pan  and  its  treasure.  "  There  !  that  '11  keep 
the  chunks  from  getting  up  to  ride  astride 
of  you  like  a  nightmare."  He  shut  the  door 
and  gave  a  momentary  glance  at  its  cheap 
hinges  and  the  absence  of  bolt  or  bar.  Stacy 
caught  his  eye.  "  We  '11  miss  this  security 
in  San  Francisco  —  perhaps  even  in  Boom- 
ville,"  he  sighed. 

It  was  scarcely  ten  o'clock,  but  Stacy  and 
Barker  had  begun  to  undress  themselves  with 
intervals  <?f  yawning  and  desultory  talk, 
Barker  continuing  an  amusing  story,  with 
one  stocking  off  and  his  trousers  hanging  on 
his  arm,  until  at  last  both  men  were  snugly 
curled  up  in  their  respective  bunks.  Pre- 
sently Stacy's  voice  came  from  under  the 
blankets :  — 

"  Hallo !  are  n't  you  going  to  turn  in, 
too?" 

"  Not  yet,"  said  Demorest  from  his  chair 
before  the  fire.  "  You  see  it 's  the  last 
night  in  the  old  shanty,  and  I  reckon  I  '11 
see  the  rest  of  it  out." 

"  That 's  so,"  said  the  impulsive  Barker, 
struggling  violently  with  his  blankets.  "  I 
tell  you  what,  boys :  we  just  ought  to  make 


34  THREE  PARTNERS. 

a  watch-night  of  it  —  a  regular  vigil,  jou 
know  —  until  twelve  at  least.  Hold  on ! 
I  '11  get  up,  too ! "  But  here  Demorest 
arose,  caught  his  youthful  partner's  bare 
foot  which  went  searching  painfully  for  the 
ground  in  one  hand,  tucked  it  back  under 
the  blankets,  and  heaping  them  on  the  top 
of  him,  patted  the  bulk  with  an  authorita- 
tive, paternal  air. 

"  You  '11  just  say  your  prayers  and  go  to 
sleep,  sonny.  You  '11  want  to  be  fresh  as  a 
daisy  to  appear  before  Miss  Kitty  to-morrow 
early,  and  you  can  keep  your  vigils  for 
to-morrow  night,  after  dinner,  in  the  back 
drawing-room.  I  said  '  Good-night,'  and  I 
mean  it ! " 

Protesting  feebly,  Barker  finally  yielded 
in  a  nestling  shiver  and  a  sudden  silence. 
Demorest  walked  back  to  his  chair.  A  pro- 
longed snore  came  from  Stacy's  bunk ;  then 
everything  was  quiet.  Demorest  stirred  up 
the  fire,  cast  a  huge  root  upon  it,  and,  lean- 
ing back  in  his  chair,  sat  with  half-closed 
eyes  and  dreamed. 

It  was  an  old  dream  that  for  the  past 
three  years  had  come  to  him  daily,  some- 
times even  overtaking  him  under  the  shade 


THREE  PARTNERS.  35 

of  a  buckeye  in  his  noontide  rest  on  his 
claim,  —  a  dream  that  had  never  yet  failed 
to  wait  for  him  at  night  by  the  fireside 
when  his  partners  were  at  rest ;  a  dream  of 
the  past,  but  so  real  that  it  always  made  the 
present  seem  the  dream  through  which  he 
was  moving  towards  some  sure  awakening. 

It  was  not  strange  that  it  should  come  to 
him  to-night,  as  it  had  often  come  before, 
slowly  shaping  itself  out  of  the  obscurity  as 
the  vision  of  a  fair  young  girl  seated  in  one 
of  the  empty  chairs  before  him.  Always 
the  same  pretty,  childlike  face,  fraught  with 
a  half -frightened,  half-wondering  trouble ; 
always  the  same  slender,  graceful  figure,  but 
always  glimmering  in  diamonds  and  satin, 
or  spiritual  in  lace  and  pearls,  against  his 
own  rude  and  sordid  surroundings  ;  always 
silent  with  parted  lips,  until  the  night  wind 
smote  some  chord  of  recollection,  and  then 
mingled  a  remembered  voice  with  his  own. 
JY>r  at  those  times  he  seemed  to  speak  also, 
albeit  with  closed  lips,  and  an  utterance  in- 
audible to  all  but  her. 

"  Well  ?  "  he  said  sadly. 

"  Well  ?  "  the  voice  repeated,  like  a  gen- 
tle echo  blending  with  his  own. 


36  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  You  know  it  all  now,"  he  went  on. 
"  You  know  that  it  has  come  at  last,  —  all 
that  I  had  worked  for,  prayed  for  ;  all  that 
would  have  made  us  happy  here ;  all  that 
would  have  saved  you  to  me  has  come  at 
last,  and  all  too  late !  " 

"  Too  late  !  "  echoed  the  voice  with  his. 

"  You  remember,"  he  went  on,  "  the  last 
day  we  were  together.  You  remember  your 
friends  and  family  would  have  you  give  me 
up  —  a  penniless  man.  You  remember  when 
they  reproached  you  with  my  poverty,  and 
told  you  that  it  was  only  your  wealth  that  I 
was  seeking,  that  I  then  determined  to  go 
away  and  never  to  return  to  claim  you  until 
that  reproach  could  be  removed.  You  re- 
member, dearest,  how  you  clung  to  me  and 
bade  me  stay  with  you,  even  fly  with  you, 
but  not  to  leave  you  alone  with  them.  You 
wore  the  same  dress  that  day,  darling ;  your 
eyes  had  the  same  wondering  childlike  fear 
and  trouble  in  them;  your  jewels  glittered 
on  you  as  you  trembled,  and  I  refused.  In 
my  pride,  or  rather  in  my  weakness  and 
cowardice,  I  refused.  I  came  away  and 
broke  my  heart  among  these  rocks  and 
ledges,  yet  grew  strong ;  and  you,  my  love, 


THREE  PARTNERS.  37 

,  sheltered  and  guarded  by  those  you 
loved,  you  "  —  He  stopped  and  buried  his 
face  in  his  hands.  The  night  wind  breathed 
down  the  chimney,  and  from  the  stirred 
ashes  on  the  hearth  came  the  soft  whisper, 
"I  died." 

"And  then,"  he  went  on,  "I  cared  for 
nothing.  Sometimes  my  heart  awoke  for 
this  young  partner  of  mine  in  his  innocent, 
trustful  love  for  a  girl  that  even  in  her 
humble  station  was  far  beyond  his  hopes, 
and  I  pitied  myself  in  him.  Home,  fortune, 
friends,  I  no  longer  cared  for  —  all  were 
forgotten.  And  now  they  are  returning  to 
me  —  only  that  I  may  see  the  hollowness 
and  vanity  of  them,  and  taste  the  bitterness 
for  which  I  have  sacrificed  you.  And  here, 
on  this  last  night  of  my  exile,  I  am  con- 
fronted with  only  the  jealousy,  the  doubt, 
the  meanness  and  selfishness  that  is  to  come. 
Too  late  I  Too  late !  " 

The  wondering,  troubled  eyes  that  had 
looked  into  his  here  appeared  to  clear  and 
brighten  with  a  sweet  prescience.  Was  it 
the  wind  moaning  in  the  chimney  that 
seemed  to  whisper  to  him:  "Too  late,  be- 
loved, for  me,  but  not  for  you.  JT  died,  but 


38  THESE  PARTNERS. 

Love  still  lives.  Be  happy,  Philip.  And 
in  your  happiness  I  too  may  live  again  "  ? 

He  started.  In  the  flickering  firelight 
the  chair  was  empty.  The  wind  that  had 
swept  down  the  chimney  had  stirred  the 
ashes  with  a  sound  like  the  passage  of  a 
rustling  skirt.  There  was  a  chill  in  the  air 
and  a  smell  like  that  of  opened  earth.  A 
nervous  shiver  passed  over  him.  Then  he 
sat  upright.  There  was  no  mistake  ;  it  was 
no  superstitious  fancy,  but  a  faint,  damp 
current  of  air  was  actually  flowing  across 
his  feet  towards  the  fireplace.  He  was  about 
to  rise  when  he  stopped  suddenly  and  be- 
came motionless. 

He  was  actively  conscious  now  of  a  strange 
sound  which  had  affected  him  even  in  the 
preoccupation  of  his  vision.  It  was  a  gentle 
brushing  of  some  yielding  substance  like  that 
made  by  a  soft  broom  on  sand,  or  the  sweep 
of  a  gown.  But  to  his  mountain  ears,  at- 
tuned to  every  woodland  sound,  it  was  not 
like  the  gnawing  of  gopher  or  squirrel,  the 
scratching  of  wildcat,  nor  the  hairy  rubbing 
of  bear.  Nor  was  it  human  ;  the  long,  deep 
respirations  of  his  sleeping  companions  were 
distinct  from  that  monotonous  sound.  He 


THREE  PARTNERS.  39 

could  not  even  tell  if  it  were  in  the  cabin  or 
without.  Suddenly  his  eye  fell  upon  the 
pile  in  the  corner.  The  blanket  that  cov- 
ered the  treasure  was  actually  moving ! 

He  rose  quickly,  but  silently,  alert,  self- 
contained,  and  menacing.  For  this  dreamer, 
this  bereaved  man,  this  scornful  philosopher 
of  riches  had  disappeared  with  that  midnight 
trespass  upon  the  sacred  treasure.  The 
movement  of  the  blanket  ceased ;  the  soft, 
swishing  sound  recommenced.  He  drew  a 
glittering  bowie-knife  from  his  boot-leg,  and 
in  three  noiseless  strides  was  beside  the  pile. 
There  he  saw  what  he  fully  expected  to  see, 
—  a  narrow,  horizontal  gap  between  the  log 
walls  of  the  cabin  and  the  adobe  floor,  slowly 
widening  and  deepening  by  the  burrowing  of 
unseen  hands  from  without.  The  cold  outer 
air  which  he  had  felt  before  was  now  plainly 
flowing  into  the  heated  cabin  through  the 
opening.  The  swishing  sound  recommenced, 
and  stopped.  Then  the  four  fingers  of  a 
hand,  palm  downwards,  were  cautiously  in- 
troduced between  the  bottom  log  and  the 
denuded  floor.  Upon  that  intruding  hand 
the  bowie-knife  of  Demorest  descended  like 
a  flash  of  lightning.  There  was  no  outcry. 


40  THREE  PARTNERS. 

Even  in  that  supreme  moment  Demorest 
felt  a  pang  of  admiration  for  the  stoicism  of 
the  unseen  trespasser.  But  the  maimed 
hand  was  quickly  withdrawn,  and  as  quickly 
Demorest  rushed  to  the  door  and  dashed  into 
the  outer  darkness. 

For  an  instant  he  was  dazed  and  bewil- 
dered by  the  sudden  change.  But  the  next 
moment  he  saw  a  dodging,  doubling  figure 
running  before  him,  and  threw  himself  upon 
it.  In  the  shock  both  men  fell,  but  even  in 
that  contact  Demorest  felt  the  tangled  beard 
and  alcoholic  fumes  of  Whiskey  Dick,  and 
felt  also  that  the  hands  which  were  thrown 
up  against  his  breast,  the  palms  turned  out- 
ward with  the  instinctive  movement  of  a 
timid,  defenseless  man,  were  unstained  with 
soil  or  blood.  With  an  oath  he  threw  the 
drunkard  from  him  and  dashed  to  the  rear 
of  the  cabin.  But  too  late  !  There,  indeed, 
was  the  scattered  earth,  there  the  widened 
burrow  as  it  had  been  excavated  apparently 
by  that  mutilated  hand  —  but  nothing  else  ! 

He  turned  back  to  Whiskey  Dick.  But 
the  miserable  man,  although  still  retaining  a 
look  of  dazed  terror  in  his  eyes,  had  recov- 
ered his  feet  in  a  kind  of  angry  confidence 


THESE  PARTNERS.  41 

and  a  forced  sense  of  injury.  What  did 
Demorest  mean  by  attacking  "  innoslient " 
gentlemen  on  the  trail  outside  his  cabin  ? 
Yes !  outside  his  cabin,  he  would  swear  it ! 

"  What  were  you  doing  here  at  mid- 
night ?  "  demanded  Demorest. 

What  was  he  doing?  What  was  any 
gentleman  doing?  He  wasn't  any  molly- 
coddle to  go  to  bed  at  ten  o'clock !  What 
was  he  doing  ?  Well  —  he  'd  been  with  men 
who  didn't  shut  their  doors  and  turn  the 
boys  out  just  in  the  shank  of  the  evening. 
He  was  n't  any  Barker  to  be  wet-nursed  by 
Demorest. 

"  Some  one  else  was  here !  "  said  Demorest 
sternly,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  Whiskey 
Dick.  The  dull  glaze  which  seemed  to  veil 
the  outer  world  from  the  drunkard's  pupils 
shifted  suddenly  with  such  a  look  of  direct 
horror  that  Demorest  was  fain  to  turn  away 
his  own.  But  the  veil  mercifully  returned, 
and  with  it  Dick's  worked-up  sense  of  injury. 
Nobody  was  there  —  not  "a  shole."  Did 
Demorest  think  if  there  had  been  any  of 
his  friends  there  they  would  have  stood  by 
like  "  dogsh  "  and  seen  him  insulted  ? 

Demorest  tumed  away  and  reentered  the 


42  THREE  PARTNERS. 

cabin  as  Dick  lurched  heavily  forward,  still 
muttering,  down  the  trail.  The  excitement 
over,  a  sickening  repugnance  to  the  whole 
incident  took  the  place  of  Demorest's  resent- 
ment and  indignation.  There  had  been  a 
cowardly  attempt  to  rob  them  of  their  mis- 
erable treasure.  He  had  met  it  and  frus- 
trated it  in  almost  as  brutal  a  fashion :  the 
gold  was  already  tarnished  with  blood.  To 
his  surprise,  yet  relief,  he  found  his  partners 
unconscious  of  the  outrage,  still  sleeping 
with  the  physical  immobility  of  over-excited 
and  tired  men.  Should  he  awaken  them  ? 
No !  He  should  have  to  awaken  also  their 
suspicions  and  desire  for  revenge.  There 
was  no  danger  of  a  further  attack ;  there 
was  no  fear  that  the  culprit  would  disclose 
himself,  and  to-morrow  they  would  be  far 
away.  Let  oblivion  rest  upon  that  night's 
stain  on  the  honor  of  Heavy  Tree  Hill. 

He  rolled  a  small  barrel  before  the  open- 
ing, smoothed  the  dislodged  earth,  replaced 
the  pan  with  its  treasure,  and  trusted  that  in 
the  bustle  of  the  early  morning  departure 
his  partners  might  not  notice  any  change. 
Stopping  before  the  bunk  of  Stacy  he  glanced 
at  the  sleeping  man.  He  was  lying  on  his 


THESE  PAETNEES.  43 

back,  but  breathing  heavily,  and  his  hands 
were  moving  towards  his  chest  as  if,  indeed, 
his  strange  fancy  of  the  golden  incubus 
were  being  realized.  Demorest  would  have 
wakened  him,  but  presently,  with  a  sigh  of 
relief,  the  sleeper  turned  over  on  his  side.  It 
was  pleasanter  to  look  at  Barker,  whose  damp 
curls  were  matted  over  his  smooth,  boyish 
forehead,  and  whose  lips  were  parted  in  a 
smile  under  the  silken  wings  of  his  brown 
mustache.  He,  too,  seemed  to  be  trying  to 
speak,  and  remembering  some  previous  re- 
velations which  had  amused  them,  Demorest 
leaned  over  him  fraternally  with  an  answer- 
ing smile,  waiting  for  the  beloved  one's  name 
to  pass  the  young  man's  lips.  But  he  only 
murmured,  "  Three  —  hundred  —  thousand 
dollars  ! "  The  elder  man  turned  away  with 
a  grave  face.  The  influence  of  the  treasure 
was  paramount. 

When  he  had  placed  one  of  the  chairs 
against  the  unprotected  door  at  an  angle 
which  would  prevent  any  easy  or  noiseless 
intrusion,  Demorest  threw  himself  on  his 
bunk  without  undressing,  and  turned  his  face 
towards  the  single  window  of  the  cabin  that 
looked  towards  the  east.  He  did  not  appre- 


44  TEHEE  PARTNERS. 

hend  another  covert  attempt  against  the 
gold.  He  did  not  fear  a  robbery  with  force 
and  arms,  although  he  was  satisfied  that 
there  was  more  than  one  concerned  in  it, 
but  this  he  attributed  only  to  the  encumber- 
ing weight  of  their  expected  booty.  He 
simply  waited  for  the  dawn.  It  was  some 
time  before  his  eyes  were  greeted  with  the 
vague  opaline  brightness  of  the  firmament 
which  meant  the  vanishing  of  the  pallid 
snow-line  before  the  coming  day.  A  bird 
twittered  on  the  roof.  The  air  was  chill ; 
he  drew  his  blanket  around  him.  Then  he 
closed  his  eyes,  he  fancied  only  for  a  mo- 
ment, but  when  he  opened  them  the  door 
was  standing  open  in  the  strong  daylight. 
He  sprang  to  his  feet,  but  the  next  moment 
he  saw  it  was  only  Stacy  who  had  passed 
out,  and  was  returning  fully  dressed,  bring- 
ing water  from  the  spring  to  fill  the  kettle. 
But  Stacy's  face  was  so  grave  that,  recalling 
his  disturbed  sleep,  Demorest  laughingly 
inquired  if  he  had  been  haunted  by  the 
treasure.  But  to  his  surprise  Stacy  put 
down  the  kettle,  and,  with  a  hurried  glance 
at  the  still  sleeping  Barker,  said  in  a  low 
voice :  — 


THREE  PARTNERS.  45 

"  I  want  you  to  do  something  for  me  with- 
out asking  why.  Later  I  will  tell  you." 

Demorest  looked  at  him  fixedly.  "  What 
is  it?"  he  said. 

"  The  pack-mules  will  be  here  in  a  few 
moments.  Don't  wait  to  close  up  or  put 
away  anything  here,  but  clap  that  gold  in 
the  saddle-bags,  and  take  Barker  with  you 
and  '  lite '  out  for  Boomville  at  once.  I 
will  overtake  you  later." 

"  Is  there  no  time  to  discuss  this  ?  "  asked 
Demorest. 

"  No,"  said  Stacy  bluntly.  "  Call  me  a 
crank,  say  I  'm  in  a  blue  funk "  —  his 
compressed  lips  and  sharp  black  eyes  did  not 
lend  themselves  much  to  that  hypothesis  — 
"  only  get  out  of  this  with  that  stuff,  and 
take  Barker  with  you  !  I  'm  not  responsi- 
ble for  myself  while  it 's  here." 

Demorest  knew  Stacy  to  be  combative,  but 
practical.  If  he  had  not  been  assured  of 
his  partner's  last  night  slumbers  he  might 
have  thought  he  knew  of  the  attempt.  Or 
if  he  had  discovered  the  turned-up  ground 
in  the  rear  of  the  cabin  his  curiosity  would 
have  demanded  an  explanation.  Demorest 
paused  only  for  a  moment,  and  said,  "  Very 
well,  I  will  go." 


46  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  Good  !  I  '11  rouse  out  Barker,  but  not 
a  word  to  him  — except  that  he  must  go." 

The  rousing  out  of  Barker  consisted  of 
Stacy's  lifting  that  young  gentleman  bodily 
from  his  bunk  and  standing  him  upright  in 
the  open  doorway.  But  Barker  was  accus- 
tomed to  this  Spartan  process,  and  after  a 
moment's  balancing  with  closed  lids  like  an 
unwrapped  mummy,  he  sat  down  in  the 
doorway  and  began  to  dress.  He  at  first 
demurred  to  their  departure  except  all  to- 
gether —  it  was  so  unfraternal ;  but  eventu- 
ally he  allowed  himself  to  be  persuaded  out 
of  it  and  into  his  clothes.  For  Barker  had 
also  had  his  visions  in  the  night,  one  of 
which  was  that  they  should  build  a  beautiful 
villa  on  the  site  of  the  old  cabin  and  sol- 
emnly agree  to  come  every  year  and  pass  a 
week  in  it  together.  "  I  thought  at  first," 
he  said,  sliding  along  the  floor  in  search  of 
different  articles  of  his  dress,  or  stopping 
gravely  to  catch  them  as  they  were  thrown 
to  him  by  his  partners,  "  that  we  'd  have  it 
at  Boomville,  as  being  handier  to  get  there  ; 
but  I  've  concluded  we  'd  better  have  it 
here,  a  little  higher  up  the  hill,  where  it 
could  be  seen  over  the  whole  Black  Spur 


THESE  PAETNERS.  47 

Range.  When  we  were  n't  here  we  could 
use  it  as  a  Hut  of  Refuge  for  broken-down 
or  washed-out  miners  or  weary  travelers, 
like  those  hospices  in  the  Alps,  you  know, 
and  have  somebody  to  keep  it  for  us.  You 
see  I  've  thought  even  of  that,  and  Van  Loo 
is  the  very  man  to  take  charge  of  it  for  us. 
You  see  he  's  got  such  good  manners  and 
speaks  two  languages.  Lord  !  if  a  German 
or  Frenchman  came  along,  poor  and  dis- 
tressed, Van  Loo  would  just  chip  in  his  own 
language.  See  ?  You  Ve  got  to  think  of 
all  these  details,  you  see,  boys.  And  we 
might  call  it  *  The  Rest  of  the  Three  Part- 
ners,' or  '  Three  Partners'  Rest.' ' 

"  And  you  might  begin  by  giving  us  one," 
said  Stacy.  "  Dry  up  and  drink  your  cof- 
fee." 

"  I  '11  draw  out  the  plans.  I  've  got  it 
all  in  my  head,"  continued  the  enthusiastic 
Barker,  unheeding  the  interruption.  "  I  '11 
just  run  out  and  take  a  look  at  the  site,  it 's 
only  right  back  of  the  cabin."  But  here 
Stacy  caught  him  by  his  dangling  belt  as  he 
was  flying  out  of  the  door  with  one  boot  on, 
and  thrust  him  down  in  a  chair  with  a  tin 
cup  of  coffee  in  his  hand. 


48  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  Keep  the  plans  in  your  head,  Barker 
boy,"  said  Demorest,  "  for  here  are  the  pack 
mules  and  packer."  This  was  quite  enough 
to  divert  the  impressionable  young  man,  who 
speedily  finished  his  dressing,  as  a  mule 
bearing  a  large  pack-saddle  and  two  enor- 
mous saddle-bags  or  pouches  drove  up  be- 
fore the  door,  led  by  a  muleteer  on  a  small 
horse.  The  transfer  of  the  treasure  to  the 
saddle-bags  was  quickly  made  by  their  united 
efforts,  as  the  first  rays  of  the  sun  were 
beginning  to  paint  the  hillside.  Shading 
his  keen  eyes  with  his  hand,  Stacy  stood  in 
the  doorway  and  handed  Demorest  the  two 
rifles.  Demorest  hesitated.  "  Had  n't  you 
better  keep  one  ? "  he  said,  looking  in  his 
partner's  eyes  with  his  first  challenge  of  cu- 
riosity. The  sun  seemed  to  put  a  humorous 
twinkle  into  Stacy's  glance  as  he  returned, 
"Not  much!  And  you'd  better  take  my 
revolver  with  you,  too.  I  'm  feeling  a  little 
better  now,"  he  said,  looking  at  the  saddle- 
bags, "  but  I  'm  not  fit  to  be  trusted  yet  with 
carnal  weapons.  When  the  other  mule  comes 
and  is  packed  I'll  overtake  you  on  the 
horse." 

A  little  more  satisfied,  although  still  won- 


THREE  PARTNERS.  49 

dering  and  perplexed,  Demorest  shouldered 
one  rifle,  and  with  Barker,  who  was  carrying 
the  other,  followed  the  muleteer  and  his  equi- 
page down  the  trail.  For  a  while  he  was  a 
little  ashamed  of  his  part  in  this  unusual 
spectacle  of  two  armed  men  convoying  a  laden 
mule  in  broad  daylight,  but,  luckily,  it  was 
too  early  for  the  Bar  miners  to  be  going  to 
work,  and  as  the  tuunelmen  were  now  at 
breakfast  the  trail  was  free  of  wayfarers. 
At  the  point  where  it  crossed  the  main  road 
Demorest,  however,  saw  Steptoe  and  Whis- 
key Dick  emerge  from  the  thicket,  appar- 
ently in  earnest  conversation.  Demorest  felt 
his  repugnance  and  half -restrained  suspicions 
suddenly  return.  Yet  he  did  not  wish  to 
betray  them  before  Barker,  nor  was  he  will- 
ing, in  case  of  an  emergency,  to  allow  the 
young  man  to  be  entirely  unprepared.  Call- 
ing him  to  follow,  he  ran  quickly  ahead  of 
the  laden  mule,  and  was  relieved  to  find  that, 
looking  back,  his  companion  had  brought  his 
rifle  to  a  "  ready,"  through  some  instinctive 
feeling  of  defense.  As  Steptoe  and  Whis- 
key Dick,  a  moment  later  discovering  them, 
were  evidently  surprised,  there  seemed,  how- 
ever, to  be  no  reason  for  fearing  an  out" 


50  THREE  PARTNERS. 

break.  Suddenly,  at  a  whisper  from  Step 
toe,  he  and  Whiskey  Dick  both  threw  up 
their  hands,  and  stood  still  on  the  trail  a  few 
yards  from  them  in  a  burlesque  of  the  usual 
recognized  attitude  of  helplessness,  while  a 
hoarse  laugh  broke  from  Steptoe. 

"  D — d  if  we  did  n't  think  you  were  road- 
agents  !  But  we  see  you  're  only  guarding 
your  treasure.  Rather  fancy  style  for  Heavy 
Tree  Hill,  ain't  it  ?  Things  must  be  gettin' 
rough  up  thar  to  hev  to  take  out  your  guns 
like  that ! " 

Demorest  had  looked  keenly  at  the  four 
hands  thus  exhibited,  and  was  more  con- 
cerned that  they  bore  no  trace  of  wounds  or 
mutilation  than  at  the  insult  of  the  speech, 
particularly  as  he  had  a  distinct  impression 
that  the  action  was  intended  to  show  him 
the  futility  of  his  suspicions. 

"  I  am  glad  to  see  that  if  you  have  n't  any 
arms  in  your  hands  you  're  not  incapable  of 
handling  them,"  said  Demorest  coolly,  as  he 
passed  by  them  and  again  fell  into  the  rear 
of  the  muleteer. 

But  Barker  had  thought  the  incident  very 
funny,  and  laughed  effusively  at  Whiskey 
Dick.  "  I  did  n't  know  that  Steptoe  was  up 


THREE  PARTNERS.  51 

to  that  kind  of  fun,"  he  said,  "  and  I  sup- 
pose we  did  look  rather  rough  with  these 
guns  as  we  ran  on  ahead  of  the  mule.  But 
then  you  know  that  when  you  called  to  me 
I  really  thought  you  were  in  for  a  shindy. 
All  the  same,  "Whiskey  Dick  did  that '  hands 
up '  to  perfection :  how  he  managed  it  I 
don't  know,  but  his  knees  seemed  to  knock 
together  as  if  he  was  in  a  real  funk." 

Demorest  had  thought  so  too,  but  he  made 
no  reply.  How  far  that  miserable  drunkard 
was  a  forced  or  willing  accomplice  of  the 
events  of  last  night  was  part  of  a  question 
that  had  become  more  and  more  repugnant  to 
him  as  he  was  leaving  the  scene  of  it  forever. 
It  had  come  upon  him,  desecrating  the  dream 
he  had  dreamt  that  last  night  and  turning 
its  hopeful  climax  to  bitterness.  Small  won- 
der that  Barker,  walking  by  his  side,  had 
his  quick  sympathies  aroused,  and  as  he  saw 
that  shadow,  which  they  were  all  familiar 
with,  but  had  never  sought  to  penetrate,  fall 
upon  his  companion's  handsome  face,  even 
his  youthful  spirits  yielded  to  it.  They  were 
both  relieved  when  the  clatter  of  hoofs  be- 
hind them,  as  they  reached  the  valley,  an- 
nounced the  approach  of  Stacy.  "  I  started 


52  THREE  PARTNERS. 

with  the  second  mule  and  the  last  load  soon 
after  you  left,"  he  explained,  "  and  have  just 
passed  them.  I  thought  it  better  to  join 
you  and  let  the  other  load  follow.  Nobody 
will  interfere  with  that" 

"  Then  you  are  satisfied  ?  "  said  Demo- 
rest,  regarding  him  steadfastly. 

«  You  bet !     Look  !  " 

He  turned  in  his  saddle  and  pointed  to 
the  crest  of  the  hill  they  had  just  descended. 
Above  the  pines  circling  the  lower  slope 
above  the  bare  ledges  of  rock  and  outcrop, 
a  column  of  thick  black  smoke  was  rising 
straight  as  a  spire  in  the  windless  air. 

"  That 's  the  old  shanty  passing  away," 
said  Stacy  complacently.  "  I  reckon  there 
won't  be  much  left  of  it  before  we  get  to 
Boomville." 

Demorest  and  Barker  stared.  "You 
fired  it  ?  "  said  Barker,  trembling  with  ex- 
citement. 

"  Yes,"  said  Stacy.  "  I  could  n't  bear  to 
leave  the  old  rookery  for  coyotes  and  wild- 
cats to  gather  in,  so  I  touched  her  off  before 
I  left." 

"  But "  —  said  Barker. 

"But,"      repeated     Stacy     composedly. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  53 

"  Hallo !  what 's  the  matter  with  that  new 
plan  of  '  The  Rest '  that  you  're  going  to 
build,  eh  ?  You  don't  want  them  both." 

"  And  you  did  this  rather  than  leave  the 
dear  old  cabin  to  strangers  ?  "  said  Barker, 
with  kindling  eyes.  "  Stacy,  I  did  n't  think 
you  had  that  poetry  in  you  !  " 

"  There  's  heaps  in  me,  Barker  boy,  that 
you  don't  know,  and  I  don't  exactly  sabe 
myself." 

"  Only,"  continued  the  young  fellow 
eagerly,  "  we  ought  to  have  all  been  there ! 
We  ought  to  have  made  a  solemn  rite  of  it, 
you  know,  —  a  kind  of  sacrifice.  We  ought 
to  have  poured  a  kind  of  libation  on  the 
ground  ! " 

"  I  did  sprinkle  a  little  kerosene  over  it, 
I  think,"  returned  Stacy,  "  just  to  help 
things  along.  But  if  you  want  to  see  her 
flaming,  Barker,  you  just  run  back  to  that 
last  corner  on  the  road  beyond  the  big  red 
wood.  That 's  the  spot  for  a  view." 

As  Barker  —  always  devoted  to  a  specta- 
cle —  swiftly  disappeared  the  two  men  faced 
each  other.  "  Well,  what  does  it  all  mean  ?  " 
said  Demorest  gravely. 

"  It   means,  old  man,"  said   Stacy  sud- 


64  THREE  PARTNERS. 

flenly,  "  that  if  we  had  n't  had  nigger  luck, 
the  same  blind  luck  that  sent  us  that  strike, 
you  and  I  and  that  Barker  over  there  would 
have  been  swirling  in  that  smoke  up  to  the 
sky  about  two  hours  ago !  "  He  stopped  and 
added  in  a  lower,  but  earnest  voice,  "  Look 
here,  Phil!  When  I  went  out  to  fetch 
water  this  morning  I  smelt  something  queer. 
I  went  round  to  the  back  of  the  cabin  and 
found  a  hole  dug  under  the  floor,  and  piled 
against  the  corner  wall  a  lot  of  brush- 
wood and  a  can  of  kerosene.  Some  of  the 
kerosene  had  been  already  poured  on  the 
brush.  Everything  was  ready  to  light,  and 
only  my  coming  out  an  hour  earlier  had 
frightened  the  devils  away.  The  idea  was 
to  set  the  place  on  fire,  suffocate  us  in  the 
smoke  of  the  kerosene  poured  into  the  hole, 
and  then  to  rush  in  and  grab  the  treasure. 
It  was  a  systematic  plan  !  " 

"  No  I  "  said  Demorest  quietly. 

"  No  ?  "  repeated  Stacy.  «  I  told  you 
1  saw  the  whole  thing  and  took  away  the 
kerosene,  which  I  hid,  and  after  you  had 
gone  used  it  to  fire  the  cabin  with,  to  see  if 
the  ones  I  suspected  would  gather  to  watch 
their  work." 


THREE  PARTNERS.  55 

"  It  was  no  part  of  their  first  plan,"  said 
Demorest,  "  which  was  only  robbery.  Lis- 
ten !  "  He  hurriedly  recounted  his  experi- 
ence of  the  preceding  night  to  the  astonished 
Stacy.  "  No,  the  «fire  was  an  afterthought 
and  revenge,"  he  added  sternly. 

"  But  you  say  you  cut  the  robber  in  the 
hand  ;  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  iden- 
tifying him  by  that." 

"I  wounded  only  a  hand"  said  Demo- 
rest.  "  But  there  was  a  head  in  that  at- 
tempt that  I  never  saw."  He  then  revealed 
his  own  half-suspicions,  but  how  they  were 
apparently  refuted  by  the  bravado  of  Step- 
toe  and  Whiskey  Dick. 

"  Then  that  was  the  reason  they  did  n't 
gather  at  the  fire,"  said  Stacy  quickly. 

"  Ah !  "  said  Demorest,  "  then  you  too 
suspected  them  ?  " 

Stacy  hesitated,  and  then  said  abruptly, 
"  Yes." 

Demorest  was  silent  for  a  moment. 
"  Why  did  n't  you  tell  me  this  this  morn- 
ing ?  "  he  said  gently. 

Stacy  pointed  to  the  distant  Barker.  "  I 
did  n't  want  you  to  tell  him.  I  thought  it 
better  for  one  partner  to  keep  a  secret  from 


56  TREES  PARTNERS. 

two  than  for  the  two  to  keep  it  from  one. 
Why  did  n't  you  tell  me  of  your  experience 
last  night  ?  " 

"  I  am  afraid  it  was  for  the  same  reason," 
said  Demorest,  with  a  faint  smile.  "  And  it 
sometimes  seems  to  me,  Jim,  that  we  ought 
to  imitate  Barker's  frankness.  In  our  dread 
of  tainting  him  with  our  own  knowledge  of 
evil  we  are  sending  him  out  into  the  world 
very  poorly  equipped,  for  all  his  three  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars." 

"  I  reckon  you  're  right,"  said  Stacy 
briefly,  extending  his  hand.  "  Shake  on 
that ! " 

The  two  men  grasped  each  other's  hands. 

"  And  he 's  no  fool,  either,"  continued 
Demorest.  "  When  we  met  Steptoe  on  the 
road,  without  a  word  from  me,  he  closed  up 
alongside,  with  'his  hand  on  the  lock  of  his 
rifle.  And  I  had  n't  the  heart  to  praise  him 
or  laugh  it  off." 

Nevertheless  they  were  both  silent  as  the 
object  of  their  criticism  bounded  down  the 
trail  towards  them.  He  had  seen  the  fune- 
ral pyre.  It  was  awfully  sad,  it  was  awfully 
lovely,  but  there  was  something  grand  in  itJ 
Who  could  have  thought  Stacy  could  be  so 


THESE  PARTNERS.  57 

poetic  ?  But  he  wanted  to  tell  them  some- 
thing else  that  was  mighty  pretty. 

"  What  was  it  ?  "  said  Demorest. 

"  Well,"  said  Barker,  "  don't  laugh  !  But 
you  know  that  Jack  Hamlin  ?  Well,  boys, 
he  's  been  hovering  around  us  on  his  mus- 
tang, keeping  us  and  that  pack-mule  in  sight 
ever  since  we  left.  Sometimes  he  's  on  a 
side  trail  off  to  the  right,  sometimes  off  to 
the  left,  but  always  at  the  same  distance.  I 
did  n't  like  to  tell  you,  boys,  for  I  thought 
you  'd  laugh  at  me  ;  but  I  think,  you  know, 
he  's  taken  a  sort  of  shine  to  us  since  he 
dropped  in  last  night.  And  I  fancy,  you 
see,  he 's  sort  of  hanging  round  to  see  that 
we  get  along  all  right.  I  'd  have  pointed 
him  out  before  only  I  reckoned  you  and 
Stacy  would  say  he  was -making  up  to  us  for 
our  money." 

"  And  we  'd  have  been  wrong,  Barker 
boy,"  said  Stacy,  with  a  heartiness  that  sur- 
prised Demorest,  "  for  I  reckon  your  in- 
stinct 's  the  right  one." 

"  There  he  is  now,"  said  the  gratified 
Barker,  "  just  abreast  of  us  on  the  cut-off. 
He  started  just  after  we  did,  and  he  's  got 
a  horse  that  could  have  brought  him  into 


58  THREE  PARTNERS. 

Boomville  hours  ago.  It 's  just  his  kind- 
ness." 

He  pointed  to  a  distant  fringe  of  buckeye 
from  which  Jack  Hainlin  had  just  emerged. 
Although  evidently  holding  in  a  powerful 
mustang,  nothing  could  be  more  unconscious 
and  utterly  indifferent  than  his  attitude. 
He  did  not  seem  to  know  of  the  proximity 
of  any  other  traveler,  and  to  care  less.  His 
handsome  head  was  slightly  thrown  back,  as 
if  he  was  caroling  after  his  usual  fashion, 
but  the  distance  was  too  great  to  make  his 
melody  audible  to  them,  or  to  allow  Bar- 
ker's shout  of  invitation  to  reach  him.  Sud- 
denly he  lowered  his  tightened  rein,  the 
mustang  sprang  forward,  and  with  a  flash  of 
silver  spurs  and  bridle  fripperies  he  had  dis- 
appeared. But  as  the  trail  he  was  pursuing 
crossed  theirs  a  mile  beyond,  it  seemed  quite 
possible  that  they  should  again  meet  him. 

They  were  now  fairly  into  the  Boomville 
valley,  and  were  entering  a  narrow  arroyo 
bordered  with  dusky  willows  which  effectu- 
ally excluded  the  view  on  either  side.  It 
was  the  bed  of  a  mountain  torrent  that  in 
winter  descended  the  hillside  over  the  trail 
by  which  they  had  just  come,  but  was  now 


THREE  PARTNERS.  59 

Bunk  into  the  thirsty  plain  between  banhs 
that  varied  from  two  to  five  feet  in  height. 
The  muleteer  had  advanced  into  the  narrow 
channel  when  he  suddenly  cast  a  hurried 
glance  behind  him,  uttered  a  "  Madre  de 
Dios  !  "  and  backed  his  mule  and  his  pre- 
cious freight  against  the  bank.  The  sound 
of  hoofs  on  the  trail  in  their  rear  had  caught 
his  quicker  ear,  and  as  the  three  partners 
turned  they  beheld  three  horsemen  thunder* 
ing  down  the  hill  towards  them.  They  were 
apparently  Mexican  vaqueros  of  the  usual 
common  swarthy  type,  their  faces  made  still 
darker  by  the  black  silk  handkerchief  tied 
round  their  heads  under  their  stiff  sombreros. 
Either  they  were  unable  or  unwilling  to  re- 
strain their  horses  in  their  headlong  speed, 
and  a  collision  in  that  narrow  passage  was 
imminent,  but  suddenly,  before  reaching  its 
entrance,  they  diverged  with  a  volley  of 
oaths,  and  dashing  along  the  left  bank  of 
the  arroyo,  disappeared  in  the  intervening 
willows.  Divided  between  relief  at  their 
escape  and  indignation  at  what  seemed  to  be 
a  drunken,  feast-day  freak  of  these  roystering 
vaqueros,  the  little  party  re-formed,  when  a 
cry  from  Barker  arrested  them.  He  had 


60  THREE  PARTNERS. 

just  perceived  a  horseman  motionless  in  the 
arroyo  who,  although  unnoticed  by  them, 
had  evidently  been  seen  by  the  Mexicans. 
He  had  apparently  leaped  into  it  from  the 
bank,  and  had  halted  as  if  to  witness  this 
singular  incident.  As  the  clatter  of  the 
vaqueros'  hoofs  died  away  he  lightly  leaped 
the  bank  again  and  disappeared.  But  in 
that  single  glimpse  of  him  they  recognized 
Jack  Hamlin.  When  they  reached  the  spot 
where  he  had  halted,  they  could  see  that  he 
must  have  approached  it  from  the  trail 
where  they  had  previously  seen  him,  but 
which  they  now  found  crossed  it  at  right 
angles.  Barker  was  right.  He  had  really 
kept  them  at  easy  distance  the  whole  length 
of  the  journey. 

But  they  were  now  reaching  its  end. 
When  they  issued  at  last  from  the  arroyo 
they  came  upon  the  outskirts  of  Boomville 
and  the  great  stage-road.  Indeed,  the  six 
horses  of  the  Pioneer  coach  were  just  pant- 
ing along  the  last  half  mile  of  the  steep  up- 
grade as  they  approached.  They  halted 
mechanically  as  the  heavy  vehicle  swayed 
and  creaked  by  them.  In  their  ordinary 
working  dress,  sunburnt  with  exposure,  cov- 


THREE  PARTNERS.  61 

ered  with  dust,  and  carrying  their  rifles  still 
in  their  hands,  they,  perhaps,  presented  a 
sufficiently  characteristic  appearance  to  draw 
a  few  faces  —  some  of  them  pretty  and  in- 
telligent —  to  the  windows  of  the  coach  as  it 
passed.  The  sensitive  Barker  was  quickest 
to  feel  that  resentment  with  which  the 
Pioneer  usually  met  the  wide-eyed  criticism 
of  the  Eastern  tourist  or  "  greenhorn,"  and 
reddened  under  the  bold  scrutiny  of  a  pair 
of  black  inquisitive  eyes  behind  an  e^<>glass. 
That  annoyance  was  communicated,  though 
in  a  lesser  degree,  even  to  the  bearded  De- 
morest  and  Stacy.  It  was  an  unexpected 
contact  with  that  great  world  in  which  they 
were  so  soon  to  enter.  They  felt  ashamed 
of  their  appearance,  and  yet  ashamed  of  that 
feeling.  They  felt  a  secret  satisfaction  when 
Barker  said,  "  They  'd  open  their  eyes  wider 
if  they  knew  what  was  in  that  pack-saddle," 
and  yet  they  corrected  him  for  what  they 
were  pleased  to  call  his  "  snobbishness." 
They  hurried  a  little  faster  as  the  road  be- 
came more  frequented,  as  if  eager  to  shorten 
their  distance  to  clean  clothes  and  civiliza- 
tion. 

Only  Demorest   began    to   linger  hi  the 


62  THEEE  PARTNERS. 

rear.  This  contact  with  the  stagecoach  had 
again  brought  him  face  to  face  with  his 
buried  past.  He  felt  his  old  dream  revive, 
and  occasionally  turned  to  look  back  upon 
the  dark  outlines  of  Black  Spur,  under 
whose  shadow  it  had  returned  so  often,  and 
wondered  if  he  had  left  it  there  forever, 
and  it  were  now  slowly  exhaling  with  the 
thinned  and  dying  smoke  of  their  burning 
cabin. 

His  companions,  knowing  his  silent  moods, 
had  preceded  him  at  some  distance,  when  he 
heard  the  soft  sound  of  ambling  hoofs  on 
the  thick  dust,  and  suddenly  the  light  touch 
of  Jack  Hamlin's  gauntlet  on  his  shoulder. 
The  mustang  Jack  bestrode  was  reeking 
with  grime  and  sweat,  but  Jack  himself  was 
as  immaculate  and  fresh  as  ever.  With  a 
delightful  affectation  of  embarrassment  and 
timidity  he  began  flicking  the  side  buttons 
of  his  velvet  vaquero  trousers  with  the  thong 
of  his  riata.  "  I  reckoned  to  sling  a  word 
along  with  you  before  you  went,"  he  said, 
looking  down,  "  but  I  'm  so  shy  that  I 
could  n't  do  it  in  company.  So  I  thought 
I  'd  get  it  off  on  you  while  you  were  alone." 

"  We  've  seen  you  once  or  twice  before, 


THREE  PAETNERS.  63 

this  morning,"  said  Demorest  pleasantly, 
"  and  we  were  sorry  you  did  n't  join  us." 

"  I  reckon  I  might  have,"  said  Jack  gayly, 
"  if  my  horse  had  only  made  up  his  mind 
whether  ne  was  a  bird  or  a  squirrel,  and 
had  n't  been  so  various  and  promiscuous 
about  whether  he  wanted  to  climb  a  tree  or 
fly.  He  's  not  a  bad  horse  tor  a  Mexican 
plug,  only  when  he  thinks  there  is  any  devil- 
ment around  he  wants  to  wade  in  and  take 
a  hand.  However,  i  reckoned  to  see  the 
last  of  you  and  your  pile  into  Booinville. 
And  I  did.  When  I  meet  three  fellows 
like  you  that  are  clean  white  all  through  I 
sort  of  cotton  to  'em,  even  if  /  'w  a  little  of 
a  brunette  myself.  And  I  've  got  something 
to  give  you." 

He  took  from  a  fold  of  his  scarlet  sash  a 
small  parcel  neatly  folded  in  white  paper  as 
fresh  and  spotless  as  himself.  Holding  it  in 
his  fingers,  he  went  on :  "I  happened  to  be 
at  Heavy  Tree  Hill  early  this  morning  be- 
fore sun-up.  In  the  darkness  I  struck  your 
cabin,  and  I  reckon  —  I  struck  somebody 
else  I  At  first  I  thought  it  was  one  of  you 
chaps  down  on  your  knees  praying  at  the 
rear  of  the  cabin,  but  the  way  the  fellow  lit 


64  THREE  PARTNERS. 

out  when  he  smelt  me  coming  made  me  think 
it  was  n't  entirely  fasting  and  prayer.  How- 
ever, I  went  to  the  rear  of  the  cabin,  and 
then  I  reckoned  some  kind  friend  had  been 
bringing  you  kindlings  and  firewood  for 
your  early  breakfast.  But  that  did  n't  sat- 
isfy me,  so  I  knelt  down  as  he  had  knelt, 
and  then  I  saw — well,  Mr.  Demorest,  I 
reckon  I  saw  just  what  you  have  seen  !  But 
even  then  I  was  n't  quite  satisfied,  for  that 
man  had  been  grubbing  round  as  if  search- 
ing for  something.  So  I  searched  too  —  and 
I  found  it.  I've  got  it  here.  I  'm  going  to 
give  it  to  you,  for  it  may  some  day  come  in 
handy,  and  you  won't  find  anything  like  it 
among  the  folks  where  you  're  going.  It 's 
something  unique,  as  those  fine-art-collect- 
ing sharps  in  'Frisco  say  —  something  quite 
matchless,  unless  you  try  to  match  it  one 
day  yourself !  Don't  open  the  paper  until  I 
run  on  and  say  '  So  long  '  to  your  partners. 
Good-by." 

He  grasped  Demorest's  hand  and  then 
dropped  the  little  packet  into  his  palm,  and 
ambled  away  towards  Stacy  and  Barker. 
Holding  the  packet  in  his  hand  with  an 
amused  yet  puzzled  smile,  Demorest  watched 


THREE  PARTNERS.  65 

the  gambler  give  Stacy's  hand  a  hearty  fare- 
well shake  and  a  supplementary  slap  on  the 
back  to  the  delighted  Barker,  and  then  van- 
ish in  a  flash  of  red  sash  and  silver  buttons. 
At  which  Demorest,  walking  slowly  towards 
his  partners,  opened  the  packet,  and  stood 
suddenly  still.  It  contained  the  dried  and 
bloodless  second  finger  of  a  human  hand  cut 
off  at  the  first  joint  I 

For  an  instant  he  held  it  at  arm's  length, 
as  if  about  to  cast  it  away.  Then  he  grimly 
replaced  it  in  the  paper,  put  it  carefully  in 
his  pocket,  and  silently  walked  after  his  com- 
panions. 


CHAPTER  1. 

A  STRONG  southwester  was  beating  against 
the  windows  and  doors  of  Stacy's  Bank  in 
San  Francisco,  and  spreading  a  film  of  rain 
between  the  regular  splendors  of  its  mahog- 
any counters  and  sprucely  dressed  clerks 
and  the  usual  passing  pedestrian.  For 
Stacy's  new  banking-house  had  long  since 
received  the  epithet  of  "  palatial "  from  an 
enthusiastic  local  press  fresh  from  the 
"  opening  "  luncheon  in  its  richly  decorated 
directors'  rooms,  and  it  was  said  that  once 
a  homely  would  -  be  depositor  from  One 
Horse  Gulch  was  so  cowed  by  its  magnifi- 
cence that  his  heart  failed  him  at  the  last 
moment,  and  mumbling  an  apology  to  the 
elegant  receiving  teller,  fled  with  his  greasy 
chamois  pouch  of  gold-dust  to  deposit  his 
treasure  in  the  dingy  Mint  around  the  cor- 
ner. Perhaps  there  was  something  of  this 
feeling,  mingled  with  a  certain  simple-minded 
fascination,  in  the  hesitation  of  a  stranger 


THESE  PARTNERS.  67 

of  a  higher  class  who  entered  the  bank  that 
rainy  morning  and  finally  tendered  his  card 
to  the  important  negro  messenger. 

The  card  preceded  him  through  noiselessly 
swinging  doors  and  across  heavily  carpeted 
passages  until  it  reached  the  inner  core  of 
Mr.  James  Stacy's  private  offices,  and  was 
respectfully  laid  before  him.  He  was  not 
alone.  At  his  side,  in  an  attitude  of  polite 
and  studied  expectancy,  stood  a  correct-look- 
ing young  man,  for  whom  Mr.  Stacy  was 
evidently  writing  a  memorandum.  The 
stranger  glanced  furtively  at  the  card  with 
a  curiosity  hardly  in  keeping  with  his  sug- 
gested good  breeding ;  but  Stacy  did  not 
look  at  it  until  he  had  finished  his  memo- 
randum. 

"  There,"  he  said,  with  business  decision, 
"  you  can  tell  your  people  that  if  we  carry 
their  new  debentures  over  our  limit  we  will 
expect  a  larger  margin.  Ditches  are  not 
what  they  were  three  years  ago  when  miners 
were  willing  to  waste  their  money  over  your 
rates.  They  don't  gamble  that  way  any 
more,  and  your  company  ought  to  know  it, 
and  not  gamble  themselves  over  that  pro- 
spect." He  handed  the  paper  to  the  stranger^ 


68  THEEE  PARTNERS. 

who  bowed  over  it  with  studied  politeness, 
and  backed  towards  the  door.  Stacy  took 
up  the  waiting  card,  read  it,  said  to  the 
messenger,  "  Show  him  in,"  and  in  the  same 
breath  turned  to  his  guest:  "I  say,  Van 
Loo,  it 's  George  Barker  !  You  know  him." 

"  Yes,"  said  Van  Loo,  with  a  polite  hesi- 
tation as  he  halted  at  the  door.  "  He  was 
—  I  think  —  er  —  in  your  employ  at  Heavy 
Tree  Hill." 

"  Nonsense  !  He  was  my  partner.  And 
you  must  have  known  him  since  at  Boom- 
ville.  Come  !  He  got  forty  shares  of  Ditch 
stock — through  you — at  110,  which  were 
worth  about  80 !  Somebody  must  have 
made  money  enough  by  it  to  remember 
him." 

"  I  was  only  speaking  of  him  socially," 
said  Van  Loo,  with  a  deprecating  smile. 
"  You  know  he  married  a  young  woman  — 
the  hotel-keeper's  daughter,  who  used  to 
wait  at  the  table  —  and  after  my  mother 
and  sister  came  out  to  keep  house  for  me  at 
Boomville  it  was  quite  impossible  for  me  to 
see  much  of  him,  for  he  seldom  went  out 
without  his  wife,  you  know." 

"  Yes,"   said  Stacy  dryly,  "  I  think  you 


THREE  PARTNERS.  69 

did  n't  like  his  marriage.  But  I  'm  glad 
your  disinclination  to  see  him  is  n't  on  ac- 
count of  that  deal  in  stocks." 

"  Oh  no,"  said  Van  Loo.  "  Good-by." 
But,  unfortunately,  in  the  next  passage 
he  came  upon  Barker,  who  with  a  cry  of 
unfeigned  pleasure,  none  the  less  sincere 
that  he  was  feeling  a  little  alien  in  these 
impressive  surroundings,  recognized  him. 
Nothing  could  exceed  Van  Loo's  protest  of 
delight  at  the  meeting ;  nothing  his  equal 
desolation  at  the  fact  that  he  was  hastening 
to  another  engagement.  "  But  your  old 
partner,"  he  added,  with  a  smile,  "  is  wait- 
ing for  you  ;  he  has  just  received  your  card, 
and  I  should  be  only  keeping  you  from  him. 
So  glad  to  see  you  ;  you  're  looking  so  well. 
Good-by!  Good-by!" 

Reassured,  Barker  no  longer  hesitated, 
but  dashed  with  his  old  impetuousness  into 
his  former  partner's  room.  Stacy,  already 
deeply  absorbed  in  other  business,  was  sitting 
with  his  back  towards  him,  and  Barker's 
arms  were  actually  encircling  his  neck 
before  the  astonished  and  half-angry  man 
looked  up.  But  when  his  eyes  met  the 
laughing  gray  ones  of  Barker  above  him  he 


70  THREE  PAETNEES. 

gently  disengaged  himself  with  a  quick  re- 
turn of  the  caress,  rose,  shut  the  door  of  an 
inner  office,  and  returning  pushed  Barker 
into  an  armchair  hi  quite  the  old  suppres- 
sive  fashion  of  former  days.  Yes  ;  it  was 
the  same  Stacy  that  Barker  looked  at,  albeit 
his  brown  beard  was  now  closely  cropped 
around  his  determined  mouth  and  jaw  in  a 
kind  of  grave  decorum,  and  his  energetic 
limbs  already  attuned  to  the  rigor  of  clothes 
of  fashionable  cut  and  still  more  rigorous 
sombreness  of  color. 

"  Barker  boy,"  he  began,  with  the  familiar 
twinkle  in  his  keen  eyes  which  the  younger 
partner  remembered,  "  I  don't  encourage 
stag  dancing  among  my  young  men  during 
bank  hours,  and  you  '11  please  to  remember 
that  we  are  not  on  Heavy  Tree  Hill  "  — 

"  Where,"  broke  in  Barker  enthusiasti- 
cally, "  we  were  only  overlooked  by  the 
Black  Spur  Range  and  the  Sierran  snow- 
line  ;  where  the  nearest  voice  that  came  to 
you  was  quarter  of  a  mile  away  as  the  crow 
flies  and  nearly  a  mile  by  the  trail." 

"  And  was  generally  an  oath ! "  said 
Stacy.  "  But  you  're  in  San  Francisco  now. 
"Where  are  you  stopping  ?  "  He  took  up  a 


THREE  PARTNERS.  71 

pencil  and  held  it  over  a  memorandum  pad 
awaitingly. 

"  At  the  Brook  House.     It 's  "  — 
"  Hold  on  !  *  Brook   House,'  "  Stacy  re- 
peated as  he  jotted  it  down.     "  And  for  how 
long?" 

"  Oh,  a  day  or  two.   You  see,  Kitty  "  — 
Stacy  checked  him  with  a  movement  of 
his  pencil  in  the  air,  and  then  wrote  down, 
" 4  Day  or  two.'     Wife  with  you?  " 

"  Yes  ;  and  oh,  Stacy,  our  boy !  Ah  !  " 
he  went  on,  with  a  laugh,  knocking  aside 
the  remonstrating  pencil,  "  you  must  listen ! 
He's  just  the  sweetest,  knowingest  little 
chap  living.  Do  you  know  what  we  're  go- 
ing to  christen  him  ?  Well,  he  '11  be  Stacy 
Demorest  Barker.  Good  names,  aren't 
they?  And  then  it  perpetuates  the  dear 
old  friendship." 

Stacy  picked  up  the  pencil  again,  wrote 
"Wife  and  child  S.  D.  B., "  and  leaned 
back  in  his  chair.  "  Now,  Barker,"  he  said 
briefly,  "  I  'm  coming  to  dine  with  you  to- 
night at  7.30  sharp.  Then  we'll  talk 
Heavy  Tree  Hill,  wife,  baby,  and  S.  D.  B. 
But  here  I  'm  all  for  business.  Have  you 
any  with  me  ?  " 


72  THREE  PAETNEES. 

Barker,  who  was  easily  amused,  had  ex- 
tracted a  certain  entertainment  out  of  Stacy's 
memorandum,  but  he  straightened  himself 
with  a  look  of  eager  confidence  and  said, 
"  Certainly  ;  that 's  just  what  it  is  —  busi- 
ness. Lord !  Stacy,  I  'm  all  business  now. 
I  'm  in  everything.  And  I  bank  with  you, 
though  perhaps  you  don't  know  it ;  it 's  in 
your  Branch  at  Marysville.  I  did  n't  want 
to  say  anything  about  it  to  you  before.  But 
Lord!  you  don't  suppose  that  I'd  bank 
anywhere  else  while  you  are  in  the  business 
—  checks,  dividends,  and  all  that ;  but  in 
this  matter  I  felt  you  knew,  old  chap.  I 
did  n't  want  to  talk  to  a  banker  nor  to  a 
bank,  but  to  Jim  Stacy,  my  old  partner." 

"  Barker,"  said  Stacy  curtly,  "  how  much 
money  are  you  short  of  ?  " 

At  this  direct  question  Barker's  always 
quick  color  rose,  but,  with  an  equally  quick 
smile,  he  said,  "  I  don't  know  yet  that  I  'm 
short  at  all." 

"But /do!" 

"  Look  here,  Jim  :  why,  I  'm  just  over- 
loaded with  shares  and  stocks,"  said  Barker, 
smiling. 

"  Not  one  of  which  you  could  realize  on 


THREE  PARTNERS.  73 

adthout  sacrifice.  Barker,  three  years  ago 
you  had  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  put 
to  your  account  at  San  Francisco." 

"  Yes,"  said  Barker,  with  a  quiet  reminis- 
cent laugh.  "  I  remember  I  wanted  to  draw 
it  out  in  one  check  to  see  how  it  would  look." 

"And  you've  drawn  out  all  in  three 
years,  and  it  looks  d— d  bad." 

"  How  did  you  know  it  ?  "  asked  Barker, 
his  face  beaming  only  with  admiration  of 
his  companion's  omniscience. 

"  How  did  I  know  it  ?  "  retorted  Stacy. 
"  I  know  yow,  and  I  know  the  kind  of  peo- 
ple who  have  unloaded  to  you." 

"  Come,  Stacy,"  said  Barker,  "  I  've  only 
invested  in  shares  and  stocks  like  every- 
body else,  and  then  only  on  the  best  advice 
1  could  get:  iike  Van  Loo's,  for  instance, 
—  that  man  who  was  here  just  now,  the  new 
manager  of  the  Empire  Ditch  Company; 
and  Carter's,  my  own  Kitty's  father.  And 
when  I  was  offered  fifty  thousand  Wide 
West  Extensions,  and  was  hesitating  over 
it,  he  told  me  you  were  in  it  too  —  and  that 
was  enough  for  me  to  buy  it." 

"  Yes,  but  we  did  n't  go  into  it  at  his 
figures." 


74  THREE  PAETNEES. 

"  No,"  said  Barker,  with  an  eager  smile, 
"but  you  sold  at  his  figures,  for  I  knew 
that  when  I  found  that  you,  my  old  part- 
ner, was  in  it ;  don't  you  see,  I  preferred  to 
buy  it  through  your  bank,  and  did  at  110. 
Of  course,  you  would  n't  have  sold  it  at 
that  figure  if  it  was  n't  worth  it  then,  and 
neither  I  nor  you  are  to  blame  if  it  dropped 
the  next  week  to  60,  don't  you  see  ?  " 

Stacy's  eyes  hardened  for  a  moment  as 
he  looked  keenly  into  his  former  partner's 
bright  gray  ones,  but  there  was  no  trace 
of  irony  in  Barker's.  On  the  contrary,  a 
slight  shade  of  sadness  came  over  them. 
"  No,"  he  said  reflectively,  "  I  don't  think 
I  've  ever  been  foolish  or  followed  out  my 
own  ideas,  except  once,  and  that  was  extra- 
vagant, I  admit.  That  was  my  idea  of  build- 
ing a  kind  of  refuge,  you  know,  on  the  site 
of  our  old  cabin,  where  poor  miners  and 
played-out  prospectors  waiting  for  a  strike 
could  stay  without  paying  anything.  Well, 
I  sunk  twenty  thousand  dollars  in  that,  and 
might  have  lost  more,  only  Carter  —  Kitty's 
father  —  persuaded  me  —  he 's  an  awful 
clever  old  fellow  —  into  turning  it  into  a 
kind  of  branch  hotel  of  Boomville,  while 


THREE  PARTNERS.  75 

using  it  as  a  hotel  to  take  poor  chaps  who 
could  n't  pay,  at  half  prices,  or  quarter 
prices,  privately,  don't  you  see,  so  as  to 
spare  their  pride,  —  awfully  pretty,  was  n't 
it?  —  and  make  the  hotel  profit  by  it." 

"  Well  ?  "  said  Stacy  as  Barker  paused. 

"  They  did  n't  come,"  said  Barker. 
"  But,"  he  added  eagerly,  "  it  shows  that 
things  were  better  than  I  had  imagined. 
Only  the  others  did  not  come,  either." 

"And  you  lost  your  twenty  thousand 
dollars,"  said  Stacy  curtly. 

"  Fifty  thousand,"  said  Barker,  "  for  of 
course  it  had  to  be  a  larger  hotel  than  the 
other.  And  I  think  that  Carter  would  n't 
have  gone  into  it  except  to  save  me  from 
losing  money." 

"  And  yet  made  you  lose  fifty  thousand 
instead  of  twenty.  For  I  don't  suppose  he 
advanced  anything." 

"  He  gave  his  time  and  experience,"  said 
Barker  simply. 

"  I  don't  think  it  worth  thirty  thousand 
dollars,"  said  Stacy  dryly.  "  But  all  this 
does  n't  tell  me  what  your  business  is  with 
me  to-day." 

"  No,"  said  Barker,  brightening  up,  "  but 


T6  THREE  PARTNERS. 

it  is  business,  you  know.  Something  in  the 
old  style  —  as  between  partner  and  partner 
—  and  that 's  why  I  came  to  you,  and  not 
to  the  '  banker.'  And  it  all  comes  out  of 
something  that  Demorest  once  told  us ;  so 
you  see  it 's  all  us  three  again  !  Well,  you 
know,  of  course,  that  the  Excelsior  Ditch 
Company  have  abandoned  the  Bar  and 
Heavy  Tree  Hill.  It  did  n't  pay." 

"  Yes ;  nor  does  the  company  pay  any 
dividends  now.  You  ought  to  know,  with 
fifty  thousand  of  their  stock  on  your  hands." 

Barker  laughed.  "  But  listen.  I  found 
that  I  could  buy  up  their  whole  plant  and 
all  the  ditching  along  the  Black  Spur  Range 
for  ten  thousand  dollars." 

"  And  Great  Scott !  you  don't  think  of 
taking  up  their  business  ?  "  said  Stacy, 
aghast. 

Barker  laughed  more  heartily.  "  No. 
Not  their  business.  But  I  remember  that 
once  Demorest  told  us,  in  the  dear  old  days, 
that  it  cost  nearly  as  much  to  make  a  water 
ditch  as  a  railroad,  in  the  way  of  surveying 
and  engineering  and  levels,  you  know.  And 
here 's  the  plant  for  a  railroad.  Don't  you 
see  ?  " 


THREE  PARTNERS.  77 

"  But  a  railroad  from  Black  Spur  to 
Heavy  Tree  Hill  —  what  's  the  good  of 
that?" 

"  Why,  Black  Spur  will  be  in  the  line  of 
the  new  Divide  Railroad  they  're  trying  to 
get  a  bill  for  in  the  legislature." 

"An  infamous  piece  of  wildcat  jobbing 
that  will  never  pass,"  said  Stacy  decisively. 

"  They  said  because  it  was  that,  it  would 
pass,"  said  Barker  simply.  "  They  say  that 
Watson's  Bank  is  in  it,  and  is  bound  to  get 
it  through.  And  as  that  is  a  rival  bank  of 
yours,  don't  you  see,  I  thought  that  if  we 
could  get  something  real  good  or  valuable 
out  of  it,  —  something  that  would  do  the 
Black  Spur  good,  —  it  would  be  all  right." 

"And  was  your  business  to  consult  me 
about  it  ?  "  said  Stacy  bluntly. 

"  No,"  said  Barker,  "  it 's  too  late  to  con- 
sult you  now,  though  I  wish  I  had.  I  've 
given  my  word  to  take  it,  and  I  can't  back 
out.  But  I  have  n't  the  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars, and  I  came  to  you." 

Stacy  slowly  settled  himself  back  in  his 
chair,  and  put  both  hands  in  his  pockets. 
"  Not  a  cent,  Barker,  not  a  cent." 

"  I 'm  not  asking  it  of  the  bank"  said 


78  THESE  PARTNERS. 

Barker,  with  a  smile,  "  for  I  could  have 
gone  to  the  bank  for  it.  But  as  this  was 
something  between  us,  I  am  asking  you, 
Stacy,  as  my  old  partner." 

"  And  I  am  answering  you,  Barker,  as 
your  old  partner,  but  also  as  the  partner 
of  a  hundred  other  men,  who  have  even  a 
greater  right  to  ask  me.  And  my  answer 
is,  not  a  cent !  " 

Barker  looked  at  him  with  a  pale,  aston- 
ished face  and  slightly  parted  lips.  Stacy 
rose,  thrust  his  hands  deeper  in  his  pockets, 
and  standing  before  him  went  on :  — 

"  Now  look  here  !  It 's  time  you  should 
understand  me  and  yourself.  Three  years 
ago,  when  our  partnership  was  dissolved 
by  accident,  or  mutual  consent,  we  will  say, 
we  started  afresh,  each  on  our  own  hook. 
Through  foolishness  and  bad  advice  you 
have  in  those  three  years  hopelessly  involved 
yourself  as  you  never  would  have  done  had 
we  been  partners,  and  yet  in  your  difficulty 
you  ask  me  and  my  new  partners  to  help 
you  out  of  a  difficulty  in  which  they  have 
no  concern." 

"  Your  new  partners  ?  "  stammered 
Barker. 


THREE  PAETNEES.  79 

*4  Yes,  my  new  partners ;  for  every  man 
who  has  a  share,  or  a  deposit,  or  an  interest, 
or  a  dollar  in  this  bank  is  my  partner  — 
even  you,  with  your  securities  at  the  Branch, 
are  one ;  and  you  may  say  that  in  this  I  am 
protecting  you  against  yourself." 

"  But  you  have  money  —  you  have  private 
means." 

"  None  to  speculate  with  as  you  wish  me 
to  —  on  account  of  my  position ;  none  to 
give  away  foolishly  as  you  expect  me  to  — 
on  account  of  precedent  and  example.  I 
am  a  soulless  machine  taking  care  of  capital 
intrusted  to  me  and  my  brains,  but  de- 
cidedly not  to  my  heart  nor  my  sentiment. 
So  my  answer  is,  not  a  cent !  " 

Barker's  face  had  changed ;  his  color  had 
come  back,  but  with  an  older  expression. 
Presently,  however,  his  beaming  smile  re- 
turned, with  the  additional  suggestion  of  an 
affectionate  toleration  which  puzzled  Stacy. 

"I  believe  you're  right,  old  chap,"  he 
said,  extending  his  hand  to  the  banker,  "  and 
I  wish  I  had  talked  to  you  before.  But  it 's 
too  late  now,  and  I  've  given  my  word." 

"  Your  word!  "  said  Stacy.  "  Have  you 
no  written  agreement  ?  " 


80  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  No.  My  word  was  accepted."  He 
blushed  slightly  as  if  conscious  of  a  great 
weakness. 

"  But  that  is  n't  legal  nor  business.  And 
you  couldn't  even  hold  the  Ditch  Company 
to  it  if  they  chose  to  back  out." 

"  But  I  don't  think  they  will,"  said  Barker 
simply.  u  And  you  see  my  word  was  n't 
given  entirely  to  them.  I  bought  the  thing 
through  my  wife's  cousin,  Henry  Spring,  a 
broker,  and  he  makes  something  by  it,  from 
the  company,  on  commission.  And  I  can't 
go  back  on  Mm.  What  did  you  say  ?  " 

Stacy  had  only  groaned  through  his  set 
teeth.  "  Nothing,"  he  said  briefly,  "  except 
that  I  'm  coming,  as  I  said  before,  to  dine 
with  you  to-night ;  but  no  more  business. 
I  've  enough  of  that  with  others,  and  there 
are  some  waiting  for  me  in  the  outer  office 
now." 

Barker  rose  at  once,  but  with  the  same 
affectionate  smile  and  tender  gravity  of  coun- 
tenance, and  laid  his  hand  caressingly  on 
Stacy's  shoulder.  "  It  's  like  you  to  give  up 
so  much  of  your  time  to  me  and  my  foolish- 
ness and  be  so  frank  with  me.  And  I  know 
it 's  mighty  rough  on  you  to  have  to  be  a 


THREE  PARTNERS.  81 

mere  machine  instead  of  Jim  Stacy.  Don't 
you  bother  about  me.  I  '11  sell  some  of  my 
Wide  West  Extension  and  pull  the  thing 
through  myself.  It 's  all  right,  but  I  'm  sorry 
for  you,  old  chap."  He  glanced  around  the 
room  at  the  walls  and  rich  paneling,  and 
added,  "  I  suppose  that 's  what  you  have  to 
pay  for  all  this  sort  of  thing  ?  " 

Before  Stacy  could  reply,  a  waiting  visi- 
tor was  announced  for  the  second  time,  and 
Barker,  with  another  hand-shake  and  a  reas- 
suring smile  to  his  old  partner,  passed  into 
the  hall,  as  if  the  onus  of  any  infelicity  in 
the  interview  was  upon  himself  alone.  But 
Stacy  did  not  seem  to  be  in  a  particularly 
accessible  mood  to  the  new  caller,  who  in 
his  turn  appeared  to  be  slightly  irritated  by 
having  been  kept  waiting  over  some  irksome 
business.  "  You  don't  seem  to  follow  me,"  he 
said  to  Stacy  after  reciting  his  business  per- 
plexity. "  Can't  you  suggest  something  ?  " 

"  Well,  why  don't  you  get  hold  of  one  of 
your  board  of  directors  ? "  said  Stacy  ab- 
stractedly. "  There 's  Captain  Drummond  ; 
you  and  he  are  old  friends.  You  were  com- 
rades in  the  Mexican  War,  were  n't  you  ?  " 

«  That  be  d — d !  "  said  his  visitor  bitterly. 


82  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  All  his  interests  are  the  other  way,  and  hi 
a  trade  of  this  kind,  you  know,  Stacy,  that 
a  man  would  sacrifice  his  own  brother.  Do 
you  suppose  that  he  'd  let  up  on  a  sure  thing 
that  he  's  got  just  because  he  and  I  fought 
side  by  side  at  Cerro  Gordo  ?  Come  1  what 
are  you  giving  us  ?  You  're  the  last  man  I 
ever  expected  to  hear  that  kind  of  flapdoodle 
from.  If  it's  because  your  bank  has  got 
some  other  interest  and  you  can't  advise  me, 
why  don't  you  say  so  ?  "  Nevertheless,  hi 
spite  of  Stacy's  abrupt  disclaimer,  he  left 
a  few  minutes  later,  half  convinced  that 
Stacy's  lukewarmness  was  due  to  some  ad- 
verse influence.  Other  callers  were  almost 
as  quickly  disposed  of,  and  at  the  end  of  an 
hour  Stacy  found  himself  again  alone. 

But  not  apparently  in  a  very  satisfied 
mood.  After  a  few  moments  of  purely  me- 
chanical memoranda-making,  he  rose  abruptly 
and  opened  a  small  drawer  in  a  cabinet,  from 
which  he  took  a  letter  still  in  its  envelope. 
It  bore  a  foreign  postmark.  Glancing  over 
it  hastily,  his  eyes  at  last  became  fixed  on  a 
concluding  paragraph.  "  I  hope,"  wrote  his 
correspondent,  "that  even  in  the  rush  of 
your  big  business  you  will  sometimes  look 


THREE  PARTNERS.  83 

after  Barker.  Not  that  I  think  the  dear  old 
chap  will  ever  go  wrong  —  indeed,  I  often 
wish  I  was  as  certain  of  myself  as  of  him 
and  his  insight ;  but  I  am  afraid  we  were 
more  inclined  to  be  merely  amused  and  tol- 
erant of  his  wonderful  trust  and  simplicity 
than  to  really  understand  it  for  his  own  good 
and  ours.  I  know  you  did  not  like  his  mar- 
riage, and  were  inclined  to  believe  he  was  the 
victim  of  a  rather  unscrupulous  father  and  a 
foolish,  unequal  girl;  but  are  you  satisfied 
that  he  would  have  been  the  happier  without 
it,  or  lived  his  perfect  life  under  other  and 
what  you  may  think  wiser  conditions?  If 
he  wrote  the  poetry  that  he  lives  everybody 
would  think  him  wonderful ;  for  being  what 
he  is  we  never  give  him  sufficient  credit." 
Stacy  smiled  grimly,  and  penciled  on  his 
memorandum,  "  He  wants  it  to  the  amount 
of  ten  thousand  dollars."  "  Anyhow,"  con- 
tinued the  writer,  "  look  after  him,  Jim,  for 
his  sake,  your  sake,  and  the  sake  of  —  PHIL 
DEMOREST." 

Stacy  put  the  letter  back  in  its  envelope, 
and  tossing  it  grimly  aside  went  on  with  his 
calculations.  Presently  he  stopped,  restored 
the  letter  to  his  cabinet,  and  rang  a  bell  on 


84  THREE  PARTNERS. 

his  table.  "  Send  Mr.  North  here,"  he  said 
to  the  negro  messenger.  In  a  few  moments 
his  chief  book-keeper  appeared  in  the  door- 
way. 

"Turn  to  the  Branch  ledger  and  bring 
me  a  statement  of  Mr.  George  Barker's 
account." 

"  He  was  here  a  moment  ago,"  said 
North,  essaying  a  confidential  look  towards 
his  chief. 

"  I  know  it,"  said  Stacy  coolly,  without 
looking  up. 

"  He 's  been  running  a  good  deal  on  wild- 
cat lately,"  suggested  North. 

"I  asked  for  his  account,  and  not  your 
opinion  of  it,"  said  Stacy  shortly. 

The  subordinate  withdrew  somewhat 
abashed  but  still  curious,  and  returned  pre- 
sently with  a  ledger  which  he  laid  before  his 
chief.  Stacy  ran  his  eyes  over  the  list  of 
Barker's  securities ;  it  seemed  to  him  that 
all  the  wildest  schemes  of  the  past  year 
stared  him  in  the  face.  His  finger,  how- 
ever, stopped  on  the  Wide  West  Extension. 
"  Mr.  Barker  will  be  wanting  to  sell  some 
of  this  stock.  What  is  it  quoted  at  now  ?  " 

"Sixty." 


THESE  PARTNERS.  85 

"But  I  would  prefer  that  Mr.  Barker 
should  not  offer  in  the  open  market  at  pre- 
sent. Give  him  seventy  for  it  —  private 
sale  ;  that  will  be  ten  thousand  dollars  paid 
to  his  credit.  Advise  the  Branch  of  this  at 
once,  and  to  keep  the  transaction  quiet." 

"Yes,  sir,"  responded  the  clerk  as  he 
moved  towards  the  door.  But  he  hesitated, 
and  with  another  essay  at  confidence  said 
insinuatingly,  "  I  always  thought,  sir,  that 
Wide  West  would  recover." 

Stacy,  perhaps  not  displeased  to  find  what 
had  evidently  passed  in  his  subordinate's 
mind,  looked  at  him  and  said  dryly,  "  Then  I 
would  advise  you  also  to  keep  that  opinion 
to  yourself."  But,  clever  as  he  was,  he  had 
not  anticipated  the  result.  Mr.  North, 
though  a  trusted  employee,  was  human.  On 
arriving  in  the  outer  office  he  beckoned  to 
one  of  the  lounging  brokers,  and  in  a  low 
voice  said,  "  I  '11  take  two  shares  of  Wide 
West,  if  you  can  get  it  cheap."  . 

The  broker's  face  became  alert  and  eager. 
"  Yes,  but  I  say,  is  anything  up  ?  " 

"  I  'm  not  here  to  give  the  business  of  the 
bank  away,"  retorted  North  severely ;  "  take 
the  order  or  leave  it." 


86  THREE  PAETNEES. 

The  man  hurried  away.  Having  thus 
vindicated  his  humanity  by  also  passing  the 
snub  he  had  received  from  Stacy  to  an  in- 
ferior, he  turned  away  to  carry  out  his  mas- 
ter's instructions,  yet  secure  in  the  belief 
that  he  had  profited  by  his  superior  discern- 
ment of  the  real  reason  of  that  master's  sin- 
gular conduct.  But  when  he  returned  to  the 
private  room,  in  hopes  of  further  revelations, 
Mr.  Stacy  was  closeted  with  another  finan- 
cial magnate,  and  had  apparently  divested 
his  mind  of  the  whole  affair. 


CHAPTER  H. 

WHEN  George  Barker  returned  to  the 
outer  ward  of  the  financial  stronghold  he 
had  penetrated,  with  its  curving  sweep  of 
counters,  brass  railings,  and  wirework  screens 
defended  by  the  spruce  clerks  behind  them,  he 
was  again  impressed  with  the  position  of  the 
man  he  had  just  quitted,  and  for  a  moment 
hesitated,  with  an  inclination  to  go  back. 
It  was  with  no  idea  of  making  a  further 
appeal  to  his  old  comrade,  but  —  what  would 
have  been  odd  in  any  other  nature  but  his 
—  he  was  affected  by  a  sense  that  he  might 
have  been  unfair  and  selfish  in  his  manner 
to  the  man  panoplied  by  these  defenses,  and 
who  was  in  a  measure  forced  to  be  a  part 
of  them.  He  would  like  to  have  returned 
and  condoled  with  him.  The  clerks,  who 
were  heartlessly  familiar  with  the  anxious 
bearing  of  the  men  who  sought  interviews 
with  their  chief,  both  before  and  after,  smiled 
with  the  whispered  conviction  that  the  fresh 


88  THREE  PARTNERS. 

and  ingenuous  young  stranger  had  been 
"  chucked "  like  others  until  they  met  his 
kindly,  tolerant,  and  even  superior  eyes,  and 
were  puzzled.  Meanwhile  Barker,  who  had 
that  sublime,  natural  quality  of  abstraction 
over  small  impertinences  which  is  more  ex- 
asperating than  studied  indifference,  after 
his  brief  hesitation  passed  out  unconcernedly 
through  the  swinging  mahogany  doors  into 
the  blowy  street.  Here  the  wind  and  rain 
revived  him ;  the  bank  and  its  curt  refusal 
were  forgotten  ;  he  walked  onward  with  only 
a  smiling  memory  of  his  partner  as  in  the 
old  days.  He  remembered  how  Stacy  had 
burned  down  their  old  cabin  rather  than 
have  it  fall  into  sordid  or  unworthy  hands 
—  this  Stacy  who  was  now  condemned  to 
sink  his  impulses  and  become  a  mere  ma- 
chine. He  had  never  known  Stacy's  real 
motive  for  that  act,  —  both  Demorest  and 
Stacy  had  kept  their  knowledge  of  the  at- 
tempted robbery  from  their  younger  part- 
ner, —  it  always  seemed  to  him  to  be  a  pre- 
cious revelation  of  Stacy's  inner  nature. 
Facing  the  wind  and  rain,  he  recalled  how 
Stacy,  though  never  so  enthusiastic  about 
his  marriage  as  Demorest,  had  taken  up  Van 


THREE  PARTNERS.  89 

Loo  sharply  for  some  foolish  sneer  about  his 
own  youthfulness.  He  was  affectionately 
tolerant  of  even  Stacy's  dislike  to  his  wife's 
relations,  for  Stacy  did  not  know  them  as  he 
did.  Indeed,  Barker,  whose  own  father  and 
mother  had  died  in  his  infancy,  had  accepted 
his  wife's  relations  with  a  loving  trust  and 
confidence  that  was  supreme,  from  the  fact 
that  he  had  never  known  any  other. 

At  last  he  reached  his  hotel.  It  was  a 
new  one,  the  latest  creation  of  a  feverish 
progress  in  hotel-building  which  had  covered 
five  years  and  as  many  squares  with  large 
showy  erections,  utterly  beyond  the  needs  of 
the  community,  yet  each  superior  in  size  and 
adornment  to  its  predecessor.  It  struck  him 
as  being  the  one  evidence  of  an  abiding  faith 
in  the  future  of  the  metropolis  that  he  had 
seen  in  nothing  else.  As  he  entered  its  fres- 
coed hall  that  afternoon  he  was  suddenly 
reminded,  by  its  challenging  opulency,  of 
the  bank  he  had  just  quitted,  without  know- 
ing that  the  bank  had  really  furnished  its 
capital  and  its  original  design.  The  gilded 
bar-rooms,  flashing  with  mirrors  and  cut 
glass  ;  the  saloons,  with  their  desert  expanse 
of  Turkey  carpet  and  oasis  of  clustered 


90  THREE  FASTNESS. 

divans  and  gilded  tables  ;  the  great  dining- 
room,  with  porphyry  columns,  and  walls  and 
ceilings  shining  with  allegory  —  all  these 
things  which  had  attracted  his  youthful  won- 
der without  distracting  his  correct  simplicity 
of  taste  he  now  began  to  comprehend.  It 
was  the  bank's  money  "  at  work."  In  the 
clatter  of  dishes  in  the  dining-room  he  even 
seemed  to  hear  again  the  chinking  of  coin. 

It  was  a  short  cut  to  his  apartments  to 
pass  through  a  smaller  public  sitting-room 
popularly  known  as  "  Flirtation  Camp," 
where  eight  or  ten  couples  generally  found 
refuge  on  chairs  and  settees  by  the  windows, 
half  concealed  by  heavy  curtains.  But  the 
occupants  were  by  no  means  youthful  spin- 
sters or  bachelors  ;  they  were  generally  mar- 
ried women,  guests  of  the  hotel,  receiving 
other  people's  husbands  whose  wives  were 
"  in  the  States,"  or  responsible  middle-aged 
leaders  of  the  town.  In  the  elaborate  toi- 
lettes of  the  women,  as  compared  with  the 
less  formal  business  suits  of  the  men,  there 
was  an  odd  mingling  of  the  social  attitude 
with  perhaps  more  mysterious  confidences. 
The  idle  gossip  about  them  had  never 
affected  Barker ;  rather  he  had  that  innate 


THREE  PARTNERS.  91 

respect  for  the  secrets  of  others  which  is  as 
inseparable  from  simplicity  as  it  is  from  high 
breeding,  and  he  scarcely  glanced  at  the  dif- 
ferent couples  in  his  progress  through  the 
room.  He  did  not  even  notice  a  rather 
striking  and  handsome  woman,  who,  sur- 
rounded by  two  or  three  admirers,  yet  looked 
up  at  Barker  as  he  passed  with  self-conscious 
lids  as  if  seeking  a  return  of  her  glance. 
But  he  moved  on  abstractedly,  and  only 
stopped  when  he  suddenly  saw  the  familiar 
skirt  of  his  wife  at  a  further  window,  and 
halted  before  it. 

"  Oh,  it 's  yow,"  said  Mrs.  Barker,  with  a 
half-nervous,  half-impatient  laugh.  "  Why, 
I  thought  you  'd  certainly  stay  half  the  after- 
noon with  your  old  partner,  considering  that 
you  have  n't  met  for  three  years." 

There  was  no  doubt  she  had  thought  so  ; 
there  was  equally  no  doubt  that  the  con- 
versation she  was  carrying  on  with  her  com- 
panion —  a  good-looking,  portly  business 
man  —  was  effectually  interrupted.  But 
Barker  did  not  notice  it.  "  Captain  Heath, 
my  husband,"  she  went  on,  carelessly  rising 
and  smoothing  her  skirts.  The  captain, 
who  had  risen  too,  bowed  vaguely  at  tha 


92  THREE  PARTNEES. 

introduction,  but  Barker  extended  his  hand 
frankly.  "  I  found  Stacy  busy,"  he  said  in 
answer  to  his  wife,  "  but  he  is  coming  to 
dine  with  us  to-night." 

"  If  you  mean  Jim  Stacy,  the  banker," 
said  Captain  Heath,  brightening  into  greater 
ease,  "  he  's  the  busiest  man  in  California. 
I  've  seen  men  standing  in  a  queue  outside 
his  door  as  in  the  old  days  at  th  post-office. 
And  he  only  gives  you  five  minutes  and  no 
extension.  So  you  and  he  were  partners 
once  ?  "  he  said,  looking  curiously  at  the  still 
youthful  Barker. 

But  it  was  Mrs.  Barker  who  answered, 
"  Oh  yes !  and  always  such  good  friends. 
I  was  awfully  jealous  of  him."  Neverthe- 
less, she  did  not  respond  to  the  affectionate 
protest  in  Barker's  eyes  nor  to  the  laugh 
of  Captain  Heath,  but  glanced  indifferently 
around  the  room  as  if  to  leave  further  con- 
versation to  the  two  men.  It  was  possible 
that  she  was  beginning  to  feel  that  Captain 
Heath  was  as  de  trop  now  as  her  husband 
had  been  a  moment  before.  Standing  there, 
however,  between  them  both,  idly  tracing  a 
pattern  on  the  carpet  with  the  toe  of  her 
slipper,  she  looked  prettier  than  she  had 


THESE  PARTNERS.  93 

ever  looked  as  Kitty  Carter.  Her  slight 
figure  was  more  fully  developed.  That  arti- 
ficial severity  covering  a  natural  virgin  coy- 
ness with  which  she  used  to  wait  at  table  in 
her  father's  hotel  at  Boomville  had  gone, 
and  was  replaced  by  a  satisfied  conscious- 
ness of  her  power  to  please.  Her  glance 
was  freer,  but  not  as  frank  as  in  those  days. 
Her  dress  was  undoubtedly  richer  and  more 
stylish ;  yet  Barker's  loyal  heart  often  re- 
verted fondly  to  the  chintz  gown,  eoquet- 
tishly  frilled  apron,  and  spotless  cuffs  and 
collar  in  which  she  had  handed  him  his  cof- 
fee with  a  faint  color  that  left  his  own  face 
crimson. 

Captain  Heath's  tact  being  equal  to  her 
indifference,  he  had  excused  himself,  although 
he  was  becoming  interested  in  this  youthful 
husband.  But  Mrs.  Barker,  after  having 
asserted  her  husband's  distinction  as  the 
equal  friend  of  the  millionaire,  was  by  no 
means  willing  that  the  captain  should  be 
further  interested  in  Barker  for  himself 
alone,  and  did  not  urge  him  to  stay.  As  he 
departed  she  turned  to  her  husband,  and, 
indicating  the  group  he  had  passed  the  mo- 
ment before,  said :  — 


94  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  That  horrid  woman  has  been  staring  at 
us  all  the  time.  I  don't  see  what  you  see 
in  her  to  admire." 

Poor  Barker's  admiration  had  been  limited 
to  a  few  words  of  civility  in  the  enforced 
contact  of  that  huge  caravansary  and  in  his 
quiet,  youthful  recognition  of  her  striking 
personality.  But  he  was  just  then  too  pre- 
occupied with  his  interview  with  Stacy  to 
reply,  and  perhaps  he  did  not  quite  under- 
stand his  wife.  It  was  odd  how  many 
things  he  did  not  quite  understand  now 
about  Kitty,  but  that  he  knew  must  be  his 
fault.  But  Mrs.  Barker  apparently  did  not 
require,  after  the  fashion  of  her  sex,  a  reply. 
For  the  next  moment,  as  they  moved  to- 
wards their  rooms,  she  said  impatiently, 
"  Well,  you  don't  tell  what  Stacy  said.  Did 
you  get  the  money  ?  " 

I  grieve  to  say  that  this  soul  of  truth  and 
frankness  lied  —  only  to  his  wife.  Perhaps 
he  considered  it  only  lying  to  himself,  a 
thing  of  which  he  was  at  times  miserably 
conscious.  "  It  was  n't  necessary,  dear,"  he 
said ;  "  he  advised  me  to  sell  my  securities 
in  the  bank;  and  if  you  only  knew  how 
dreadfully  busy  he  is." 


THREE  PARTNERS.  95 

Mrs.  Barker  curled  her  pretty  lip.  "  It 
does  n't  take  very  long  to  lend  ten  thousand 
dollars  !  "  she  said.  "  But  that 's  what  I 
always  tell  you.  You  have  about  made  me 
sick  by  singing  the  praises  of  those  wonder- 
ful partners  of  yours,  and  here  you  ask  a 
favor  of  one  of  them  and  he  tells  you  to  sell 
your  securities  !  And  you  know,  and  he 
knows,  they  're  worth  next  to  nothing." 

"  You  don't  understand,  dear  "  —  began 
Barker. 

"  I  understand  that  you  've  given  your 
word  to  poor  Harry,"  said  Mrs.  Barker  in 
pretty  indignation,  "who's  responsible  for 
the  Ditch  purchase." 

"  And  I  shall  keep  it.  I  always  do,"  said 
Barker  very  quietly,  but  with  that  same  sin- 
gular expression  of  face  that  had  puzzled 
Stacy.  But  Mrs.  Barker,  who,  perhaps, 
knew  her  husband  better,  said  in  an  altered 
voice :  — 

"  But  how  can  you,  dear  ?  " 

"If  I 'm  short  a  thousand  or  two  I  '11  ask 
your  father." 

Mrs.  Barker  was  silent.  "  Father 's  so 
very  much  harried  now,  George.  Why  don't 
you  simply  throw  the  whole  thing  up  ?  " 


96  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  But  I  've  given  my  word  to  your  cousin 
Henry." 

"Yes,  but  only  your  word.  There  was 
no  written  agreement.  And  you  could  n't 
even  hold  him  to  it." 

Barker  opened  his  frank  eyes  in  astonish- 
ment. Her  own  cousin,  too !  And  they 
were  Stacy's  very  words ! 

"  Besides,"  added  Mrs.  Barker  audaciously, 
"  he  could  get  rid  of  it  elsewhere.  He  had 
another  offer,  but  he  thought  yours  the  best. 
So  don't  be  silly." 

By  this  time  they  had  reached  their  rooms. 
Barker,  apparently  dismissing  the  subject 
from  his  mind  with  characteristic  buoyancy, 
turned  into  the  bedroom  and  walked  smil- 
ingly towards  a  small  crib  which  stood  in 
the  corner.  "  Why,  he 's  gone !  "  he  said 
in  some  dismay. 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  Barker  a  little  impa- 
tiently, "  you  did  n't  expect  me  to  take  him 
into  the  public  parlor,  where  I  was  seeing 
visitors,  did  you  ?  I  sent  him  out  with  the 
nurse  into  the  lower  hall  to  play  with  the 
other  children." 

A  shade  momentarily  passed  over  Barker's 
face.  He  always  looked  forward  to  meeting 


THREE  PARTNERS.  97 

the  child  when  he  came  back.  He  had  a 
belief,  based  on  no  grounds  whatever,  that 
the  little  creature  understood  him.  And  he 
had  a  father's  doubt  of  the  wholesomeness 
of  other  people's  children  who  were  born 
into  the  world  indiscriminately  and  not  un- 
der the  exceptional  conditions  of  his  own. 
"  I  '11  go  and  fetch  him,"  he  said. 

"  You  have  n't  told  me  anything  about 
your  interview ;  what  you  did  and  what  your 
good  friend  Stacy  said,"  said  Mrs.  Barker, 
dropping  languidly  into  a  chair.  "  And 
really  if  you  are  simply  running  away  again 
after  that  child,  I  might  just  as  well  have 
asked  Captain  Heath  to  stay  longer." 

"  Oh,  as  to  Stacy,"  said  Barker,  dropping 
beside  her  and  taking  her  hand ;  "  well,  dear, 
he  was  awfully  busy,  you  know,  and  shut  up 
in  the  innermost  office  like  the  agate  in  one 
of  the  Japanese  nests  of  boxes.  But,"  he 
continued,  brightening  up,  "just  the  same 
dear  old  Jim  Stacy  of  Heavy  Tree  Hill, 
when  I  first  knew  you.  Lord  !  dear,  how  it 
all  came  back  to  me  !  That  day  I  proposed 
to  you  in  the  belief  that  I  was  unexpectedly 
rich  and  even  bought  a  claim  for  the  boys 
on  the  strength  of  it,  and  how  I  came  back 


98  THESE  PARTNERS. 

to  them  to  find  that  they  had  made  a  big 
strike  on  the  very  claim.  Lord  !  I  remem- 
ber how  I  was  so  afraid  to  tell  them  about 
you — and  how  they  guessed  it  —  that  dear 
old  Stacy  one  of  the  first." 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Barker,  "and  I  hope 
your  friend  Stacy  remembered  that  but  for 
me,  when  you  found  out  that  you  were  not 
rich,  you  'd  have  given  up  the  claim,  but 
that  I  really  deceived  my  own  father  to 
make  you  keep  it.  I  've  often  worried  over 
that,  George,"  she  said  pensively,  turning 
a  diamond  bracelet  around  her  pretty  wrist, 
"  although  I  never  said  anything  about  it." 

"  But,  Kitty  darling,"  said  Barker,  grasp- 
ing his  wife's  hand,  "  I  gave  my  note  for  it ; 
you  know  you  said  that  was  bargain  enough, 
and  I  had  better  wait  until  the  note  was  due, 
and  until  I  found  I  could  n't  pay,  before  I 
gave  up  the  claim.  It  was  very  clever  of 
you,  and  the  boys  all  said  so,  too.  But  you 
never  deceived  your  father,  dear,"  he  said, 
looking  at  her  gravely,  "  for  I  should  have 
told  him  everything." 

"  Of  course,  if  you  look  at  it  in  that  way," 
said  his  wife  languidly,  "  it 's  nothing ;  only 
I  think  it  ought  to  be  remembered  when 


THREE  PARTNERS.  99 

people  go  about  saying  papa  ruined  you  with 
his  hotel  schemes." 

"  Who  dares  say  that  ?  "  said  Barker  in- 
dignantly. 

"  Well,  if  they  don't  say  it  they  look  it," 
said  Mrs.  Barker,  with  a  toss  of  her  pretty 
head,  "  and  I  believe  that 's  at  the  bottom 
of  Stacy's  refusal." 

"  But  he  never  said  a  word,  Kitty,"  said 
Barker,  flushing. 

"  There,  don't  excite  yourself,  George," 
said  Mrs.  Barker  resignedly,  "  but  go  for 
the  baby.  I  know  you  're  dying  to  go,  and 
I  suppose  it 's  time  Norah  brought  it  up- 
stairs." 

At  any  other  time  Barker  would  have 
lingered  with  explanations,  but  just  then  a 
deeper  sense  than  usual  of  some  misunder- 
standing made  him  anxious  to  shorten  this 
domestic  colloquy.  He  rose,  pressed  his 
wife's  hand,  and  went  out.  But  yet  he  was 
not  entirely  satisfied  with  himself  for  leaving 
her.  "  I  suppose  it  is  n't  right  my  going 
off  as  soon  as  I  come  in,"  he  murmured  re- 
proachfully to  himself ,  "  but  I  think  she  wants 
the  baby  back  as  much  as  I ;  only,  woman- 
like, she  did  n't  care  to  let  me  know  it." 


100  THREE  PARTNERS. 

He  reached  the  lower  hall,  which  he  knew 
was  a  favorite  promenade  for  the  nurses 
who  were  gathered  at  the  farther  end,  where 
a  large  window  looked  upon  Montgomery 
Street.  But  Norah,  the  Irish  nurse,  was 
not  among  them  ;  he  passed  through  several 
corridors  in  his  search,  but  in  vain.  At 
last,  worried  and  a  little  anxious,  he  turned 
to  regain  his  rooms  through  the  long  saloon 
where  he  had  found  his  wife  previously.  It 
was  deserted  now ;  the  last  caller  had  left  — 
even  frivolity  had  its  prescribed  limits.  He 
was  consequently  startled  by  a  gentle  mur- 
mur from  one  of  the  heavily  curtained 
window  recesses.  It  was  a  woman's  voice 

—  low,  sweet,  caressing,  and  filled  with  an 
almost   pathetic   tenderness.      And   it   was 
followed   by   a   distinct    gurgling   satisfied 
crow. 

Barker  turned  instantly  in  that  direction. 
A  step  brought  him  to  the  curtain,  where  a 
singular  spectacle  presented  itself. 

Seated  on  a  lounge,  completely  absorbed 
and  possessed  by  her  treasure,  was  the 
"  horrid  woman  "  whom  his  wife  had  indi- 
cated only  a  little  while  ago,  holding  a  baby 

—  Kitty's  sacred  baby  —  in  her  wanton  lap  ' 


THESE  PARTNERS.  101 

The  child  was  feebly  grasping  the  end  of  the 
slender  jeweled  necklace  which  the  woman 
held  temptingly  dangling  from  a  thin  white 
jeweled  finger  above  it.  But  its  eyes  were 
beaming  with  an  intense  delight,  as  if  trying 
to  respond  to  the  deep,  concentrated  love  in 
the  handsome  face  that  was  bent  above  it. 

At  the  sudden  intrusion  of  Barker  she 
looked  up.  There  was  a  faint  rise  in  her 
color,  but  no  loss  of  self-possession. 

"  Please  don't  scold  the  nurse,"  she  said, 
"nor  say  anything  to  Mrs.  Barker.  It  is 
all  my  fault.  I  thought  that  both  the  nurse 
and  child  looked  dreadfully  bored  with  each 
other,  and  I  borrowed  the  little  fellow  for 
a  while  to  try  and  amuse  him.  At  least  I 
have  n't  made  him  cry,  have  I,  dear  ?  "  The 
last  epithet,  it  is  needless  to  say,  was  ad- 
dressed to  the  little  creature  in  her  lap,  but 
in  its  tender  modulation  it  touched  the  fa- 
ther's quick  sympathies  as  if  he  had  shared 
it  with  the  child.  "  You  see,"  she  said 
softly,  disengaging  the  baby  fingers  from 
her  necklace,  "  that  our  sex  is  not  the  only 
one  tempted  by  jewelry  and  glitter." 

Barker  hesitated ;  the  Madonna-like  devo- 
tion of  a  moment  ago  was  gone  ;  it  was  only 


102  THREE  PARTNERS. 

the  woman  of  the  world  who  laughingly 
looked  up  at  him.  Nevertheless  he  was 
touched.  "  Have  you  —  ever  —  had  a  child, 
Mrs.  Horn  castle  ?  "  he  asked  gently  and  hes- 
itatingly. He  had  a  vague  recollection  that 
she  passed  for  a  widow,  and  in  his  simple 
eyes  all  women  were  virgins  or  married 
saints. 

"  No,"  she  said  abruptly.  Then  she  added 
with  a  laugh,  "  Or  perhaps  I  should  not  ad- 
mire them  so  much.  I  suppose  it 's  the  same 
feeling  bachelors  have  for  other  people's 
wives.  But  I  know  you  're  dying  to  take 
that  boy  from  me.  Take  him,  then,  and 
don't  be  ashamed  to  carry  him  yourself  just 
because  I  'm  here  ;  you  know  you  would  de- 
light to  do  it  if  I  weren't." 

Barker  bent  over  the  silken  lap  in  which 
the  child  was  comfortably  nestling,  and  in 
that  attitude  had  a  faint  consciousness  that 
Mrs.  Horncastle  was  mischievously  breathing 
into  his  curls  a  silent  laugh.  Barker  lifted 
his  firstborn  with  proud  skillfulness,  but 
that  sagacious  infant  evidently  knew  when 
he  was  comfortable,  and  in  a  paroxysm  of 
objection  caught  his  father's  curls  with  one 
fist,  while  with  the  other  he  grasped  Mrs. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  103 

Horncastle's  brown  braids  and  brought  their 
heads  into  contact.  Upon  which  humorous 
situation  Norah,  the  nurse,  entered. 

"  It 's  all  right,  Norah,"  said  Mrs.  Horn- 
castle,  laughing,  as  she  disengaged  herself 
from  the  linking  child.  "  Mr.  Barker  has 
claimed  the  baby,  and  has  agreed  to  forgive 
you  and  me  and  say  nothing  to  Mrs.  Bar- 
ker." Norah,  with  the  inscrutable  criticism 
of  her  sex  on  her  sex,  thought  it  extremely 
probable,  and  halted  with  exasperating  dis- 
cretion. "  There,"  continued  Mrs.  Horn- 
castle,  playfully  evading  the  child's  further 
advances,  "  go  with  papa,  that 's  a  dear. 
Mr.  Barker  prefers  to  carry  him  back, 
Norah." 

"  But,"  said  the  ingenuous  and  persistent 
Barker,  still  lingering  in  hopes  of  recalling 
the  woman's  previous  expression,  "you  do 
love  children,  and  you  think  him  a  bright 
little  chap  for  his  age  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Horncastle,  putting 
back  her  loosened  braid,  "  so  round  and  fat 
and  soft.  And  such  a  discriminating  eye 
for  jewelry.  Really  you  ought  to  get  a 
necklace  like  mine  for  Mrs.  Barker  —  it 
would  please  both,  you  know."  She  moved 


104  TIIEEE  PARTNERS. 

slowly  away,  the  united  efforts  of  Norah 
and  Barker  scarcely  sufficing  to  restrain  the 
struggling  child  from  leaping  after  her  as 
she  turned  at  the  door  and  blew  him  a  kiss. 

When  Barker  regained  his  room  he  found 
that  Mrs.  Barker  had  dismissed  Stacy  from 
her  mind  except  so  far  as  to  invoke  Norah's 
aid  in  laying  out  her  smartest  gown  for  din- 
ner. "  But  why  take  all  this  trouble, 
dear  ?  "  said  her  simple-minded  husband ; 
"  we  are  going  to  dine  in  a  private  room  so 
that  we  can  talk  over  old  times  all  by  our- 
selves, and  any  dress  would  suit  him.  And, 
Lord,  dear !  "  he  added,  with  a  quick  bright- 
ening at  the  fancy,  "  if  you  could  only  just 
rig  yourself  up  in  that  pretty  lilac  gown  you 
used  to  wear  at  Boom  ville  —  it  would  be  too 
killing,  and  just  like  old  times.  I  put  it 
away  myself  in  one  of  our  trunks  —  I 
couldn't  bear  to  leave  it  behind;  I  know 
just  where  it  is.  I  '11 "  —  But  Mrs.  Bar- 
ker's restraining  scorn  withheld  him. 

"  George  Barker,  if  you  think  I  am  going 
to  let  you  throw  away  and  utterly  waste  Mr. 
Stacy  on  us,  alone,  in  a  private  room  with 
closed  doors  —  and  I  dare  say  you  'd  like  to 
sit  in  your  dressing-gown  and  slippers  —  you 


THREE  PARTNERS.  105 

are  entirely  mistaken.  I  know  what  is  due, 
not  to  your  old  partner,  but  to  the  great 
Mr.  Stacy,  the  financier,  and  I  know  what  is 
due  from  him  to  us  !  No !  We  dine  in  the 
great  dining-room,  publicly,  and,  if  possible, 
at  the  very  next  table  to  those  stuck-up  Peter- 
burys  and  their  Eastern  friends,  including 
that  horrid  woman,  which,  I  'm  sure,  ought 
to  satisfy  you.  Then  you  can  talk  as  much 
as  you  like,  and  as  loud  as  you  like,  about 
old  times,  —  and  the  louder  and  the  more 
the  better,  —  but  I  don't  think  he  '11  like 
it." 

"  But  the  baby  !  "  expostulated  Barker. 
"  Stacy 's  just  wild  to  see  him  —  and  we 
can't  bring  him  down  to  the  table  —  though 
we  might"  he  added,  momentarily  brighten- 
ing. 

"  After  dinner,"  said  Mrs.  Barker  severely, 
"we  will  walk  through  the  big  drawing- 
rooms,  and  then  Mr.  Stacy  may  come  up- 
stairs and  see  him  in  his  crib  ;  but  not  be- 
fore. And  now,  George,  I  do  wish  that 
to-night,  for  once,  you  would  not  wear  a 
turn-down  collar,  and  that  you  would  go  to 
the  barber's  and  have  him  cut  your  hair  and 
smooth  out  the  curls.  And,  for  Heaven's 


106  THREE,  PARTNERS. 

sake !  let  him  put  some  wax  or  gum  or 
something  on  your  mustache  and  twist  it 
up  on  your  cheek  like  Captain  Heath's,  for 
it  positively  droops  over  your  mouth  like  a 
girl's  ringlet.  It 's  quite  enough  for  me  to 
hear  people  talk  of  your  inexperience,  but 
really  I  don't  want  you  to  look  as  if  I  had 
run  away  with  a  pretty  schoolboy.  And, 
considering  the  size  of  that  child,  it 's  posi- 
tively disgraceful.  And,  one  thing  more, 
George.  When  I  'm  talking  to  anybody, 
please  don't  sit  opposite  to  me,  beaming 
with  delight,  and  your  mouth  open.  And 
don't  roar  if  by  chance  I  say  something 
funny.  And  —  whatever  you  do  —  don't 
make  eyes  at  me  in  company  whenever  I 
happen  to  allude  to  you,  as  I  did  before 
Captain  Heath.  It  is  positively  too  ridicu- 
lous." 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  laughing  good 
humor  with  which  her  husband  received 
these  cautions,  nor  the  evident  sincerity  with 
which  he  promised  amendment.  Equally 
sincere  was  he,  though  a  little  more  thought- 
ful, in  his  severe  self-examination  of  his  de- 
ficiencies, when,  later,  he  seated  himself  at 
the  window  with  one  hand  softly  encom- 


THESE  PARTNERS.  107 

passing  his  child's  chubby  fist  in  the  crib 
beside  him,  and,  in  the  instinctive  fashion 
of  all  loneliness,  looked  out  of  the  window. 
The  southern  trades  were  whipping  the 
waves  of  the  distant  bay  and  harbor  into 
yeasty  crests.  Sheets  of  rain  swept  the  side- 
walks with  the  regularity  of  a  fusillade, 
against  which  a  few  pedestrians  struggled 
with  flapping  waterproofs  and  slanting  um- 
brellas. He  could  look  along  the  deserted 
length  of  Montgomery  Street  to  the  heights 
of  Telegraph  Hill  and  its  long-disused  sema- 
phore. It  seemed  lonelier  to  him  than  the 
mile-long  sweep  of  Heavy  Tree  Hill,  writh- 
ing against  the  mountain  wind  and  its 
seolian  song.  He  had  never  felt  so  lonely 
there.  In  his  rigid  self-examination  he 
thought  Kitty  right  in  protesting  against 
the  effect  of  his  youthfulness  and  optimism. 
Yet  he  was  also  right  in  being  himself. 
There  is  an  egoism  in  the  highest  simplicity ; 
and  Barker,  while  willing  to  believe  in 
others'  methods,  never  abandoned  his  own 
aims.  He  was  right  in  loving  Kitty  as  he 
did ;  he  knew  that  she  was  better  and  more 
lovable  than  she  could  believe  herself  to  be ; 
but  he  was  willing  to  believe  it  pained  and 


108  THEEE  PARTNERS. 

discomposed  her  if  he  showed  it  before  com- 
pany. He  would  not  have  her  change  even 
this  peculiarity  —  it  was  part  of  herself  — • 
no  more  than  he  would  have  changed  him- 
self. And  behind  what  he  had  conceived 
was  her  clear,  practical  common  sense,  all 
this  tune  had  been  her  belief  that  she  had 
deceived  her  father !  Poor  dear,  dear  Kitty ! 
And  she  had  suffered  because  stupid  people 
had  conceived  that  her  father  had  led  him 
away  in  selfish  speculations.  As  if  he  — 
Barker  —  would  not  have  first  discovered  it> 
and  as  if  anybody — even  dear  Kitty  her- 
self  —  was  responsible  for  his  convictions 
and  actions  but  himself.  Nevertheless,  this 
gentle  egotist  was  unusually  serious,  and 
when  the  child  awoke  at  last,  and  with  a 
fretful  start  and  vacant  eyes  pushed  his 
caressing  hand  away,  he  felt  lonelier  than 
before.  It  was  with  a  slight  sense  of  humili- 
ation, too,  that  he  saw  it  stretch  its  hands 
to  the  mere  hireling,  Norah,  who  had  never 
given  it  the  love  that  he  had  seen  even  in 
the  frivolous  Mrs.  Horncastle's  eyes.  Later, 
when  his  wife  came  in,  looking  very  pretty 
in  her  elaborate  dinner  toilette,  he  had  the 
same  conflicting  emotions.  He  knew  that 


THREE  PARTNERS.  109 

they  had  already  passed  that  phase  of  their 
married  life  when  she  no  longer  dressed  to 
please  him,  and  that  the  dictates  of  fashion 
or  the  rivalry  of  another  woman  she  held 
superior  to  his  tastes  ;  yet  he  did  not  blame 
her.  But  he  was  a  little  surprised  to  see 
that  her  dress  was  copied  from  one  of  Mrs. 
Horncastle's  most  striking  ones,  and  that  it 
did  not  suit  her.  That  which  adorned  the 
maturer  woman  did  not  agree  with  the  de- 
mure and  slightly  austere  prettiness  of  the 
young  wife. 

But  Barker  forgot  all  this  when  Stacy  — 
reserved  and  somewhat  severe-looking  in 
evening  dress  —  arrived  with  business  punc- 
tuality. He  fancied  that  his  old  partner 
received  the  announcement  that  they  would 
dine  in  the  public  room  with  something  of 
surprise,  and  he  saw  him  glance  keenly  at 
Kitty  in  her  fine  array,  as  if  he  had  sus- 
pected it  was  her  choice,  and  understood 
her  motives.  Indeed,  the  young  husband 
had  found  himself  somewhat  nervous  in 
regard  to  Stacy's  estimate  of  Kitty ;  he  was 
conscious  that  she  was  not  looking  and  act- 
ing like  the  old  Kitty  that  Stacy  had  known ; 
it  did  not  enter  his  honest  heart  that  Stacy 


110 


THREE  PAETNERS. 


had,  perhaps,  not  appreciated  her  then,  and 
that  her  present  quality  might  accord  more 
with  his  worldly  tastes  and  experience.  It 
was,  therefore,  with  a  kind  of  timid  delight 
that  he  saw  Stacy  apparently  enter  into  her 
mood,  and  with  a  still  more  timorous  amuse- 
ment to  notice  that  he  seemed  to  sympathize 
not  only  with  her,  but  with  her  half -rallying, 
half-serious  attitude  towards  his  (Barker's) 
inexperience  and  simplicity.  He  was  glad 
that  she  had  made  a  friend  of  Stacy,  even  in 
this  way.  Stacy  would  understand,  as  he 
did,  her  pretty  willfulness  at  last ;  she  would 
understand  what  a  true  friend  Stacy  was  to 
him.  It  was  with  unfeigned  satisfaction 
that  he  followed  them  in  to  dinner  as  she 
leaned  upon  his  guest's  arm,  chatting  confi- 
dentially. He  was  only  uneasy  because  her 
manner  had  a  slight  ostentation. 

The  entrance  of  the  little  party  produced 
a  quick  sensation  throughout  the  dining- 
room.  Whispers  passed  from  table  to  table ; 
all  heads  were  turned  towards  the  great 
financier  as  towards  a  magnet ;  a  few  guests 
even  shamelessly  faced  round  in  their  chairs 
as  he  passed.  Mrs.  Barker  was  pink,  pretty, 
and  voluble  with  excitement ;  Stacy  had  a 


THREE  PARTNERS.  Ill 

slight  mask  of  reserve ;  Barker  was  the 
only  one  natural  and  unconscious. 

As  the  dinner  progressed  Barker  found 
that  there  was  little  chance  for  him  to  invoke 
his  old  partner's  memories  of  the  past.  He 
found,  however,  that  Stacy  had  received  a 
letter  from  Demorest,  and  that  he  was  com- 
ing home  from  Europe.  His  letters  were 
still  sad  ;  they  both  agreed  upon  that.  And 
then  for  the  first  time  that  day  Stacy  looked 
intently  at  Barker  with  the  look  that  he  had 
often  worn  on  Heavy  Tree  Hill. 

"Then  you  think  it  is  the  same  old 
trouble  that  worries  him  ?  "  said  Barker  in 
an  awed  and  sympathetic  voice. 

"  I  believe  it  is,"  said  Stacy,  with  an  equal 
feeling.  Mrs.  Barker  pricked  up  her  pretty 
ears ;  her  husband's  ready  sympathy  was 
familiar  enough  ;  but  that  this  cold,  practical 
Stacy  should  be  moved  at  anything  piqued 
her  curiosity. 

"  And  you  believe  that  he  has  never  got 
over  it  ?  "  continued  Barker. 

"  He  had  one  chance,  but  he  threw  it 
away,"  said  Stacy  energetically.  "  If,  in- 
stead of  going  off  to  Europe  by  himself  to 
brood  over  it,  he  had  joined  me  in  business, 
he  'd  have  been  another  man." 


112  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  But  not  Demorest,"  said  Barker  quickly. 

"  What  dreadful  secret  is  this  about  De- 
morest ?  "  said  Mrs.  Barker  petulantly.  "  Is 
heiU?" 

Both  men  were  silent  by  their  old  common 
instinct.  But  it  was  Stacy  who  said  "  No  " 
in  a  way  that  put  any  further  questioning  at 
an  end,  and  Barker  was  grateful  and  for  the 
moment  disloyal  to  his  Kitty. 

It  was  with  delight  that  Mrs.  Barker  had 
seen  that  the  attention  of  the  next  table  was 
directed  to  them,  and  that  even  Mrs.  Horn- 
castle  had  glanced  from  time  to  time  at 
Stacy.  But  she  was  not  prepared  for  the 
evident  equal  effect  that  Mrs.  Horncastle 
had  created  upon  Stacy.  His  cold  face 
warmed,  his  critical  eye  softened ;  he  asked 
her  name.  Mrs.  Barker  was  voluble,  preju- 
diced, and,  it  seemed,  misinformed. 

"  I  know  it  all,"  said  Stacy,  with  didactic 
emphasis.  "  Her  husband  was  as  bad  as 
they  make  them.  When  her  life  had  be- 
come intolerable  with  him,  he  tried  to  make 
it  shameful  without  him  by  abandoning  her. 
She  couLl  get  a  divorce  a  dozen  times  over, 
but  she  won't." 

"  I  suppose  that 's  what  makes  her  so  very 


THREE  P AETHERS.  113 

attractive  to  gentlemen,"  said  Mrs.  Barker 
ironically. 

"  I  have  never  seen  her  before,"  continued 
Stacy,  with  business  precision,  "  although  I 
and  two  other  men  are  guardians  of  her 
property,  and  have  saved  it  from  the  clutches 
of  her  husband.  They  told  me  she  was 
handsome  —  and  so  she  is." 

Pleased  with  the  sudden  human  weakness 
of  Stacy,  Barker  glanced  at  his  wife  for  sym- 
pathy. But  she  was  looking  studiously  an- 
other way,  and  the  young  husband's  eyes, 
still  full  of  his  gratification,  fell  upon  Mrs. 
Horncastle's.  She  looked  away  with  a  bright 
color.  Whereupon  the  sanguine  Barker  — 
perfectly  convinced  that  she  returned  Stacy's 
admiration  —  was  seized  with  one  of  his  old 
boyish  dreams  of  the  future,  and  saw  Stacy 
happily  united  to  her,  and  was  only  recalled 
to  the  dinner  before  him  by  its  end.  Then 
Stacy  duly  promenaded  the  great  saloon  with 
Mrs.  Barker  on  his  arm,  visited  the  baby  in 
her  apartments,  and  took  an  easy  leave. 
But  he  grasped  Barker's  hand  before  part- 
ing in  quite  his  old  fashion,  and  said, 
"  Come  to  lunch  with  me  at  the  bank  any 
day,  and  we  '11  talk  of  Phil  Demorest,"  and 


114  THREE  PARTNERS. 

left  Barker  as  happy  as  if  the  appointment 
were  to  confer  the  favor  he  had  that  morn- 
ing refused.  But  Mrs.  Barker,  who  had 
overheard,  was  more  dubious. 

"  You  don't  suppose  he  asks  you  to  talk 
with  you  about  Demorest  and  his  stupid 
secret,  do  you  ?  "  she  said  scornfully. 

"Perhaps  not  only  about  that,"  said 
Barker,  glad  that  she  had  not  demanded  the 
secret. 

"  Well,"  returned  Mrs.  Barker  as  she 
turned  away,  "  he  might  just  as  well  lunch 
here  and  talk  about  her  —  and  see  her,  too." 

Meantime  Stacy  had  dropped  into  his 
club,  only  a  few  squares  distant.  His  ap- 
pearance created  the  same  interest  that  it 
had  produced  at  the  hotel,  but  with  less  re- 
serve among  his  fellow  members. 

"  Have  you  heard  the  news  ? "  said  a 
dozen  voices.  Stacy  had  not ;  he  had  been 
dining  out. 

"  That  infernal  swindle  of  a  Divide  Rail- 
road has  passed  the  legislature." 

Stacy  instantly  remembered  Barker's  ab- 
surd belief  in  it  and  his  reasons.  He  smiled 
and  said  carelessly,  "  Are  you  quite  sure  it 's 
a  swindle  ?  " 


THREE  PARTNERS.  115 

There  was  a  dead  silence  at  the  coolness 
of  the  man  who  had  been  most  outspoken 
against  it. 

"But,"  said  a  voice  hesitatingly,  "you 
know  it  goes  nowhere  and  to  no  purpose." 

"  But  that  does  not  prevent  it,  now  that 
it 's  a  fact,  from  going  anywhere  and  to  some 
purpose,"  said  Stacy,  turning  away.  He 
passed  into  the  reading-room  quietly,  but  in 
an  instant  turned  and  quickly  descended  by 
another  staircase  into  the  hall,  hurriedly  put 
on  his  overcoat,  and  slipping  out  was  a  mo- 
ment later  reentering  the  hotel.  Here  he 
hastily  summoned  Barker,  who  came  down, 
flushed  and  excited.  Laying  his  hand  on 
Barker's  arm  in  his  old  dominant  way,  he 
said :  — 

"Don't  delay  a  single  hour,  but  get  a 
written  agreement  for  that  Ditch  property." 

Barker  smiled.  "  But  I  have.  Got  it 
this  afternoon." 

"  Then  you  know  ?  "  ejaculated  Stacy  in 
surprise. 

"  I  only  know,"  said  Barker,  coloring, 
"  that  you  said  I  could  back  out  of  it  if  it 
was  n't  signed,  and  that 's  what  Kitty  said, 
too.  And  I  thought  it  looked  awfully  mean 


116  THREE  PAETNEES. 

for  me  to  hold  a  man  to  that  kind  of  a  bar- 
gam.  And  so  —  you  won't  be  mad,  old  fel- 
low, will  you  ?  —  I  thought  I  'd  put  it  be- 
yond any  question  of  my  own  good  faith  by 
having  it  in  black  and  white."  He  stopped, 
laughing  and  blushing,  but  still  earnest  and 
sincere.  "You  don't  think  me  a  fool,  do 
you  ?"  he  said  pathetically. 

Stacy  smiled  grimly.  "  I  think,  Barker 
boy,  that  if  you  go  to  the  Branch  you  '11 
have  no  difficulty  in  paying  for  the  Ditch 
property.  Good-night." 

In  a  few  moments  he  was  back  at  the  club 
again  before  any  one  knew  he  had  even  left 
the  building.  As  he  again  reentered  the 
smoking-room  he  found  the  members  still  in 
eager  discussion  about  the  new  railroad.  One 
was  saying,  "  If  they  could  get  an  extension, 
and  carry  the  road  through  Heavy  Tree 
Hill  to  Boomville  they  'd  be  all  right." 

"  I  quite  agree  with  you,"  said  Stacy. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  swaying,  creaking,  Boomville  coach 
had  at  last  reached  the  level  ridge,  and  sank 
forward  upon  its  springs  with  a  sigh  of  re- 
lief and  the  slow  precipitation  of  the  red 
dust  which  had  hung  in  clouds  around  it. 
The  whole  coach,  inside  and  out,  was  cov- 
ered with  this  impalpable  powder  ;  it  had 
poured  into  the  windows  that  gaped  widely 
in  the  insufferable  heat ;  it  lay  thick  upon  the 
novel  read  by  the  passenger  who  had  for  the 
third  or  fourth  time  during  the  ascent  made 
a  gutter  of  the  half -opened  book  and  blown 
the  dust  away  in  a  single  puff,  like  the 
smoke  from  a  pistol.  It  lay  in  folds  and 
creases  over  the  yellow  silk  duster  of  the 
handsome  woman  on  the  back  seat,  and 
when  she  endeavored  to  shake  it  off  envel- 
oped her  in  a  reddish  nimbus.  It  grimed 
the  handkerchiefs  of  others,  and  left  san- 
guinary streaks  on  their  mopped  foreheads. 
But  as  the  coach  had  slowly  climbed  the 


118  THESE  PARTNERS. 

summit  the  sun  was  also  sinking  behind  the 
Black  Spur  Range,  and  with  its  ultimate 
disappearance  a  delicious  coolness  spread 
itself  like  a  wave  across  the  ridge.  The 
passengers  drew  a  long  breath,  the  reader 
closed  his  book,  the  lady  lifted  the  edge  of 
her  veil  and  delicately  wiped  her  forehead, 
over  which  a  few  damp  tendrils  of  hair  were 
clinging.  Even  a  distinguished-looking  man 
who  had  sat  as  impenetrable  and  remote  as 
a  statue  in  one  of  the  front  seats  moved  and 
turned  his  abstracted  face  to  the  window. 
His  deeply  tanned  cheek  and  clearly  cut  fea- 
tures harmonized  with  the  red  dust  that  lay 
in  the  curves  of  his  brown  linen  dust-cloak, 
and  completed  his  resemblance  to  a  bronze 
figure.  Yet  it  was  Demorest,  changed  only 
in  coloring.  Now,  as  five  years  ago,  his  ab- 
straction had  a  certain  quality  which  the 
most  familiar  stranger  shrank  from  disturb- 
ing. But  in  the  general  relaxation  of  relief 
the  novel-reader  addressed  him. 

"  Well,  we  ain't  far  from  Boomville  now, 
and  it 's  all  down-grade  the  rest  of  the  way. 
I  reckon  you  '11  be  as  glad  to  get  a  '  wash 
up '  and  a  '  shake  '  as  the  rest  of  us." 

"  I  am  afraid  I  won't  have  so  early  an 


THESE  PARTNERS.  119 

opportunity,"  said  Demorest,  with  a  faint, 
grave  smile,  "  for  I  get  off  at  the  cross-road 
to  Heavy  Tree  Hill." 

"  Heavy  Tree  Hill !  "  repeated  the  other 
in  surprise.  "  You  ain't  goin'  to  Heavy 
Tree  Hill?  Why,  you  might  have  gone 
there  direct  by  railroad,  and  have  been  there 
four  hours  ago.  You  know  there  's  a  branch 
from  the  Divide  Railroad  goes  there  straight 
to  the  hotel  at  Hymettus." 

"  Where  ?  "  said  Demorest,  with  a  puzzled 
smile. 

"  Hymettus.  That 's  the  fancy  name 
they  've  given  to  the  watering-place  on  the 
slope.  But  I  reckon  you  're  a  stranger 
here?" 

•  "  For  five  years,"  said  Demorest.  "  I 
fancy  I  've  heard  of  the  railroad,  although 
I  prefer  to  go  to  Heavy  Tree  this  way.  But 
I  never  heard  of  a  watering-place  there  be- 
fore." 

"  Why,  it 's  the  biggest  boom  of  the  year. 
Folks  that  are  tired  of  the  fogs  of  'Frisco 
and  the  heat  of  Sacramento  all  go  there. 
It 's  four  thousand  feet  up,  with  a  hotel  like 
Saratoga,  dancing,  and  a  band  plays  every 
night.  And  it  all  sprang  out  of  the  Di- 


120  THESE  PARTNERS. 

vide  Railroad  and  a  crank  named  George 
Barker,  who  bought  up  some  old  Ditch  pro- 
perty and  ran  a  branch  line  along  its  levels, 
and  made  a  junction  with  the  Divide. 
You  can  come  all  the  way  from  'Frisco  or 
Sacramento  by  rail.  It 's  a  mighty  big 
thing !  " 

"  Yet,"  said  Demorest,  with  some  anima- 
tion, "  you  call  the  man  who  originated  this 
success  a  crank.  I  should  say  he  was  a 
genius." 

The  other  passenger  shook  his  head. 
"  All  sheer  nigger  luck.  He  bought  the 
Ditch  plant  afore  there  was  a  ghost  of  a 
chance  for  the  Divide  Railroad,  just  out 
o'  pure  d — d  foolishness.  He  expected  so 
little  from  it  that  he  had  n't  even  got  the 
agreement  done  in  writin',  and  had  n't  paid 
for  it,  when  the  Divide  Railroad  passed 
the  legislature,  as  it  never  oughter  done ! 
For,  you  see,  the  blamedest  cur'ous  thing 
about  the  whole  affair  was  that  this  '  straw ' 
road  of  a  Divide,  all  pure  wildcat,  was  only 
gotten  up  to  frighten  the  Pacific  Railroad 
sharps  into  buying  it  up.  And  the  road 
that  nobody  ever  calculated  would  ever  have 
a  rail  of  it  laid  was  pushed  on  as  soon 


THREE  PARTNERS.  121 

as  folks  knew  that  the  Ditch  plant  had 
been  bought  up,  for  they  thought  there 
was  a  big  thing  behind  it.  Even  the  hotel 
was,  at  first,  simply  a  kind  of  genteel  alms- 
house  that  this  yer  Barker  had  built  for 
broken-down  miners  !  " 

"  Nevertheless,"  continued  Demorest,  smil- 
ing, "  you  admit  that  it  is  a  great  success  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  the  other,  a  little  irritated 
by  some  complacency  in  Demorest's  smile, 
"  but  the  success  is  n't  his'n.  Fools  has 
ideas,  and  wise  men  profit  by  them,  for  that 
hotel  now  has  Jim  Stacy's  bank  behind  it, 
and  is  even  a  kind  of  country  branch  of  the 
Brook  House  in  'Frisco.  Barker 's  out  of  it, 
I  reckon.  Anyhow,  he  could  n't  run  a  hotel, 
for  all  that  his  wife  —  she  that 's  one  of  the 
big  'Frisco  swells  now  —  used  to  help  serve 
in  her  father's.  No,  sir,  it 's  just  a  fool's 
luck,  gettin'  the  first  taste  and  leavin'  the 
rest  to  others." 

"I'm  not  sure  that  it's  the  worst  kind 
of  luck,"  returned  Demorest,  with  persistent 
gravity ;  "  and  I  suppose  he  's  satisfied  with 
it."  But  so  heterodox  an  opinion  only  irri- 
tated his  antagonist  the  more,  especially 
as  he  noticed  that  the  handsome  woman  in 


122  THREE  PARTNERS. 

the  back  seat  appeared  to  be  interested  in 
the  conversation,  and  even  sympathetic  with 
Demorest.  The  man  was  in  the  main  a 
good-natured  fellow  and  loyal  to  his  friends ; 
but  this  did  not  preclude  any  virulent  criti- 
cism of  others,  and  for  a  moment  he  hated 
this  bronze-faced  stranger,  and  even  saw 
blemishes  in  the  handsome  woman's  beauty. 
"That  may  be  your  idea  of  an  Eastern 
man,"  he  said  bluntly,  "  but  I  kin  tell  ye 
that  Californy  ain't  run  on  those  lines.  No, 
sir."  Nevertheless,  his  curiosity  got  the 
better  of  his  ill  humor,  and  as  the  coach  at 
last  pulled  up  at  the  cross-road  for  Demorest 
to  descend  he  smiled  affably  at  his  departing 
companion. 

"  You  allowed  just  now  that  you  'd  bin 
five  years  away.  Whar  mout  ye  have  bin  ?  " 

"In  Europe,"  said  Demorest  pleasantly. 

"  I  reckoned  ez  much,"  returned  his  inter- 
rogator, smiling  significantly  at  the  other 
passengers.  "  But  in  what  place  ?  " 

"  Oh,  many,"  said  Demorest,  smiling  also. 

"  But  what  place  war  ye  last  livin'  at  ?  " 

"Well,"  said  Demorest,  descending  the 
steps,  but  lingering  for  a  moment  with  his 
hand  on  the  door  of  the  coach,  "  oddly 


THREE  PARTNERS.  123 

enough,  now  you  remind  me  of  it  —  at  Hy- 
mettus ! " 

He  closed  the  door,  and  the  coach  rolled 
on.  The  passenger  reddened,  glanced  indig- 
nantly after  the  departing  figure  of  Demo- 
rest  and  suspiciously  at  the  others.  The 
lady  was  looking  from  the  window  with  a 
faint  smile  on  her  face. 

"  He  might  hev  given  me  a  civil  answer," 
muttered  the  passenger,  and  resumed  his 
novel. 

When  the  coach  drew  up  before  Carter's 
Hotel  the  lady  got  down,  and  the  curiosity 
of  her  susceptible  companions  was  gratified 
to  the  extent  of  learning  from  the  register 
that  her  name  was  Horncastle. 

She  was  shown  to  a  private  sitting-room, 
which  chanced  to  be  the  one  which  had  be- 
longed to  Mrs.  Barker  in  the  days  of  her 
maidenhood,  and  was  the  sacred,  impenetra- 
ble bower  to  which  she  retired  when  her 
daily  duties  of  waiting  upon  her  father's 
guests  were  over.  But  the  breath  of  custom 
had  passed  through  it  since  then,  and  but 
little  remained  of  its  former  maiden  glories, 
except  a  few  schoolgirl  crayon  drawings  on 
the  wall  and  an  unrecognizable  portrait  of 


124  THREE  PAETNERS. 

herself  in  oil,  done  by  a  wandering  artist 
and  still  preserved  as  a  receipt  for  his  un- 
paid bill.  Of  these  facts  Mrs.  Horncastle 
knew  nothing;  she  was  evidently  preoccu- 
pied, and  after  she  had  removed  her  outer 
duster  and  entered  the  room,  she  glanced  at 
the  clock  on  the  mantel-shelf  and  threw  her- 
self with  an  air  of  resigned  abstraction  in 
an  armchair  in  the  corner.  Her  traveling- 
dress,  although  unostentatious,  was  tasteful 
and  well-fitting;  a  slight  pallor  from  her 
fatiguing  journey,  and,  perhaps,  from  some 
absorbing  thought,  made  her  beauty  still 
more  striking.  She  gave  even  an  air  of 
elegance  to  the  faded,  worn  adornments  of 
the  room,  which  it  is  to  be  feared  it  never 
possessed  in  Miss  Kitty's  occupancy.  Again 
she  glanced  at  the  clock.  There  was  a  tap 
at  the  door. 

"  Come  in." 

The  door  opened  to  a  Chinese  servant 
bearing  a  piece  of  torn  paper  with  a  name 
written  on  it  in  lieu  of  a  card. 

Mrs.  Horncastle  took  it,  glanced  at  the 
name,  and  handed  the  paper  back. 

"  There  must  be  some  mistake,"  she  said. 
"  I  do  not  know  Mr.  Steptoe." 


THREE  PARTNERS.  125 

"No,  but  you  kuow  me  all  the  same," 
said  a  voice  from  the  doorway  as  a  man 
entered,  coolly  took  the  Chinese  servant  by 
the  elbows  and  thrust  him  into  the  passage, 
closing  the  door  upon  him.  "  Steptoe  and 
Horncastle  are  the  same  man,  only  I  prefer 
to  call  myself  Steptoe  here.  And  I  see 
you  're  down  on  the  register  as  '  Horncastle.' 
Well,  it 's  plucky  of  you,  and  it 's  not  a  bad 
name  to  keep ;  you  might  be  thankful  that  I 
have  always  left  it  to  you.  And  if  I  call 
myself  Steptoe  here  it 's  a  good  blind  against 
any  of  your  swell  friends  knowing  you  met 
your  husband  here." 

In  the  half-scornful,  half -resigned  look  she 
had  given  him  when  he  entered  there  was  no 
doubt  that  she  recognized  him  as  the  man 
she  had  come  to  see.  He  had  changed  little 
in  the  five  years  that  had  elapsed  since  he 
entered  the  three  partners'  cabin  at  Heavy 
Tree  Hill.  His  short  hair  and  beard  still 
clung  to  his  head  like  curled  moss  or  the 
crisp  -flocculence  of  Astrakhan.  He  was 
dressed  more  pretentiously,  but  still  gave 
the  same  idea  of  vulgar  strength.  She  lis- 
tened to  him  without  emotion,  but  said,  with 
even  a  deepening  of  scorn  in  her  manner :  — • 


126  THESE  PARTNERS. 

"  What  new  shame  is  this  ?  " 

"  Nothing  new"  he  replied.  "  Only  five 
years  ago  I  was  livin'  over  on  the  Bar  at 
Heavy  Tree  Hill  under  the  name  of  Steptoe, 
and  folks  here  might  recognize  me.  I  was 
here  when  your  particular  friend,  Jim  Stacy, 
who  only  knew  me  as  Steptoe,  and  doesn't 
know  me  as  Horncastle,  your  husband,  —  for 
all  he  's  bound  up  my  property  for  you,  — 
made  his  big  strike  with  his  two  partners. 
I  was  in  his  cabin  that  very  night,  and 
drank  his  whiskey.  Oh,  I  'm  all  right  there  1 
I  left  everything  all  right  behind  me  — 
only  it 's  just  as  well  he  does  n't  know  I  'm 
Horncastle.  And  as  the  boy  happened  to  be 
there  with  me  "  —  He  stopped,  and  looked 
at  her  significantly. 

The  expression  of  her  face  changed. 
Eagerness,  anxiety,  and  even  fear  came  into 
it  in  turn,  but  always  mingling  with  some 
scorn  that  dominated  her.  "  The  boy !  "  she 
said  in  a  voice  that  had  changed  too ;  "  well, 
what  about  him  ?  You  promised  to  tell  me 
all,  — all!" 

"  Where 's  the  money  ?  "  he  said.  "  Hus- 
band and  wife  are  one,  I  know,"  he  went  on 
with  a  coarse  laugh,  "  but  I  don't  trust  my- 
self in  these  matters." 


THEEE  PARTNERS.  127 

She  took  from  a  traveling-reticule  that  lay 
beside  her  a  roll  of  notes  and  a  chamois 
leather  bag  of  coin,  and  laid  them  on  the 
table  before  him.  He  examined  both  care- 
fully. 

"  All  right,"  he  said.  "  I  see  you  've  got 
the  checks  made  out  'to  bearer.'  Your 
head 's  level,  Conny.  Pity  you  and  me  can't 
agree." 

"I  went  to  the  bank  across  the  way  as 
soon  as  I  arrived,"  she  said,  with  contemp- 
tuous directness.  "  I  told  them  I  was  going 
over  to  Hymettus  and  might  want  money." 

He  dropped  into  a  chair  before  her  with 
his  broad  heavy  hands  upon  his  knees,  and 
looked  at  her  with  an  equal,  though  baser, 
contempt :  for  his  was  mingled  with  a  cer- 
tain pride  of  mastery  and  possession. 

"  And,  of  course,  you  '11  go  to  Hymettus 
and  cut  a  splurge  as  you  always  do.  The 
beautiful  Mrs.  Horncastle!  The  helpless 
victim  of  a  wretched,  dissipated,  disgraced, 
gambling  husband.  So  dreadfully  sad,  you 
know,  and  so  interesting !  Could  get  a  di- 
vorce from  the  brute  if  she  wanted,  but 
won't,  on  account  of  her  religious  scruples. 
And  so  while  the  brute  is  gambling,  swin- 


128  THREE  PARTNERS. 

dling,  disgracing  himself ,  and  dodging  a  shot 
here  and  a  lynch  committee  there,  two  or 
three  hundred  miles  away,  you  're  splurging 
round  in  first-class  hotels  and  watering- 
places,  doing  the  injured  and  abused,  and 
run  after  by  a  lot  of  men  who  are  ready  to 
take  my  place,  and,  maybe,  some  of  my  re- 
putation along  with  it." 

"  Stop !  "  she  said  suddenly,  in  a  voice 
that  made  the  glass  chandelier  ring.  He 
had  risen  too,  with  a  quick,  uneasy  glance 
towards  the  door.  But  her  outbreak  passed 
as  suddenly,  and  sinking  back  into  her  chair, 
she  said,  with  her  previous  scornful  resig- 
nation, "  Never  mind.  Go  on.  You  know 
you  're  lying !  " 

He  sat  down  again  and  looked  at  her 
critically.  "  Yes,  as  far  as  you  're  concerned 
I  was  lying  !  I  know  your  style.  But  as 
you  know,  too,  that  I  'd  kill  you  and  the  first 
man  I  suspected,  and  there  ain't  a  judge  or 
a  jury  in  all  Californy  that  would  n't  let  me 
go  free  for  it,  and  even  consider,  too,  that  it 
had  wiped  off  the  whole  slate  agin  me  —  it 's 
to  my  credit !  " 

"I  know  what  you  men  call  chivalry," 
she  said  coldly,  "  but  I  did  not  come  hero  to 


THREE  PARTNERS.  129 

buy  a  knowledge  of  that.  So  now  about  the 
child  ?  "  she  ended  abruptly,  leaning  forward 
again  with  the  same  look  of  eager  solicitude 
in  her  eyes. 

"Well,  about  the  child  —  our  child — 
though,  perhaps,  I  prefer  to  say  my  child," 
he  began,  with  a  certain  brutal  frankness. 
"  I  '11  tell  you.  But  first,  I  don't  want  you 
to  talk  about  buying  your  information  of 
me.  If  I  have  n't  told  you  anything  before, 
it 's  because  I  did  n't  think  you  oughter 
know.  If  I  did  n't  trust  the  child  to  you, 
it 's  because  I  did  n't  think  you  could  go 
shashaying  about  with  a  child  that  was 
three  years  old  when  I "  —  he  stopped  and 
wiped  his  mouth  with  the  back  of  his  hand 
—  ".made  an  honest  woman  of  you  —  I 
think  that 's  what  they  call  it." 

"  But,"  she  said  eagerly,  ignoring  the 
insult,  "  I  could  have  hidden  it  where  no  one 
but  myself  would  have  known  it.  I  could 
have  sent  it  to  school  and  visited  it  as  a 
relation." 

"  Yes,"  he  said  curtly,  "  like  all  women, 
and  then  blurted  it  out  some  day  and  made 
it  worse." 

"  But,"  she  said  desperately,  "  even  then, 


130  THREE  PARTNERS. 

suppose  I  had  been  willing  to  take  the  shame 
of  it !  I  have  taken  more  !  " 

"  But  I  did  n't  intend  that  you  should," 
he  said  roughly. 

"  You  are  very  careful  of  my  reputation,'1 
she  returned  scornfully. 

"  Not  by  a  d — d  sight,"  he  burst  out ; 
"  but  I  care  for  his  !  I  'm  not  goin'  to  let 
any  man  call  him  a  bastard  !  " 

Callous  as  she  had  become  even  under 
this  last  cruel  blow,  she  could  not  but  see 
something  in  his  coarse  eyes  she  had  never 
seen  before  ;  could  not  but  hear  something 
in  his  brutal  voice  she  had  never  heard  be- 
fore! Was  it  possible  that  somewhere  in 
the  depths  of  his  sordid  nature  he  had  his 
own  contemptible  sense  of  honor  ?  A  hys- 
terical feeling  came  over  her  hitherto  passive 
disgust  and  scorn,  but  it  disappeared  with 
his  next  sentence  in  a  haze  of  anxiety. 
"  No !  "  he  said  hoarsely,  "  he  had  enough 
wrong  done  him  already." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  she  said  implor- 
ingly. "  Or  are  you  again  lying  ?  You 
said,  four  years  ago,  that  he  had  '  got  into 
trouble  ; '  that  was  your  excuse  for  keeping 
him  from  me.  Or  was  that  a  lie,  too  ?  " 


THREE  PARTNERS.  181 

His  manner  changed  and  softened,  but 
not  for  any  pity  for  his  companion,  but 
rather  from  some  change  in  Ms  own  feelings. 
"Oh,  that"  he  said,  with  a  rough  laugh, 
"  that  was  only  a  kind  o'  trouble  any  sassy 
kid  like  him  was  likely  to  get  into.  You 
ain't  got  no  call  to  hear  that,  for,"  he  added, 
with  a  momentary  return  to  his  previous 
manner,  "  the  wrong  that  was  done  him  is 
my  lookout !  You  want  to  know  what  I  did 
with  him,  how  he  's  been  looked  arter,  and 
where  he  is  ?  You  want  the  worth  of  your 
money.  That 's  square  enough.  But  first 
I  want  you  to  know,  though  you  mayn't  be- 
lieve it,  that  every  red  cent  you  Ve  given 
me  to-night  goes  to  him.  And  don't  you 
forget  it" 

For  all  his  vulgar  frankness  she  knew  he 
had  lied  to  her  many  times  before,  —  ma- 
liciously, wantonly,  complacently,  but  never 
evasively;  yet  there  was  again  that  some- 
thing in  his  manner  which  told  her  he  was 
now  telling  the  truth. 

"  Well,"  he  began,  settling  himself  back 
in  his  chair,  "  I  told  you  I  brought  him  to 
Heavy  Tree  Hill.  After  I  left  you  I  was  n't 
going  to  trust  him  to  no  school ;  he  knew 


132  THREE  PARTNERS. 

enough  for  me  ;  but  when  I  left  those  parts 
where  nobody  knew  you,  and  got  a  little 
nearer  'Frisco,  where  people  might  have 
known  us  both,  I  thought  it  better  not  to 
travel  round  with  a  kid  o'  that  size  as  his 
father.  So  I  got  a  young  fellow  here  to 
pass  him  off  as  his  little  brother,  and  look 
after  him  and  board  him  ;  and  I  paid  him  a 
big  price  for  it,  too,  you  bet !  You  would  n't 
think  it  was  a  man  who 's  now  swelling 
around  here,  the  top  o'  the  pile,  that  ever 
took  money  from  a  brute  like  me,  and  for 
such  schoolmaster  work,  too ;  but  he  did, 
and  his  name  was  Van  Loo,  a  clerk  of  the 
Ditch  Company." 

"  Van  Loo  !  "  said  the  woman,  with  a 
movement  of  disgust ;  "  that  man  !  " 

"  What 's  the  matter  with  Van  Loo  ?  "  he 
said,  with  a  coarse  laugh,  enjoying  his  wife's 
discomfiture.  "  He  speaks  French  and  Span- 
ish, and  you  oughter  hear  the  kid  roll  off  the 
lingo  he 's  got  from  him.  He 's  got  style, 
and  knows  how  to  dress,  and  you  ought  to 
see  the  kid  bow  and  scrape,  and  how  he  car- 
ries himself.  Now,  Van  Loo  was  n't  ex- 
actly my  style,  and  I  reckon  I  don't  hanker 
after  him  much,  but  he  served  my  purpose." 


THBEE  PAETNEES.  133 

"  And  this  man  knows  "  —  she  said,  with 
a  shudder. 

"  He  knows  Steptoe  and  the  boy,  but  he 
don't  know  Horncastle  nor  you.  Don't  you 
be  skeert.  He  's  the  last  man  in  the  world 
who  would  hanker  to  see  me  or  the  kid  again, 
or  would  dare  to  say  that  he  ever  had ! 
Lord !  I  'd  like  to  see  his  fastidious  mug 
if  me  and  Eddy  walked  in  upon  him  and  his 
high-toned  mother  and  sister  some  arter- 
noon."  He  threw  himself  back  and  laughed 
a  derisive,  spasmodic,  choking  laugh,  which 
was  so  far  from  being  genial  that  it  even 
seemed  to  indicate  a  lively  appreciation  of 
pain  in  others  rather  than  of  pleasure  in 
himself.  He  had  often  laughed  at  her  in 
the  same  way. 

"  And  where  is  he  now  ?  "  she  said,  with  a 
compressed  lip. 

"  At  school.  Where,  I  don't  tell  you. 
You  know  why.  But  he  's  looked  after  by 
me,  and  d — d  well  looked  after,  too." 

She  hesitated,  composed  her  face  with  an 
effort,  parted  her  lips,  and  looked  out  of  the 
window  into  the  gathering  darkness.  Then 
after  a  moment  she  said  slowly,  yet  with  a 
certain  precision :  — 


134  THEEE  PARTNERS. 

"  And  his  mother  ?  Do  you  ever  talk  to 
him  of  her  ?  Does  —  does  he  ever  speak 
of  me?" 

"  What  do  you  think  ?  "  he  said  comfort- 
ably, changing  his  position  in  the  chair,  and 
trying  to  read  her  face  in  the  shadow. 
"  Come,  now.  You  don't  know,  eh  ?  Well  — 
no  !  No  !  You  understand.  No !  He 's  my 
friend  —  mine  !  He  's  stood  by  me  through 
thick  and  thin.  Run  at  my  heels  when 
everybody  else  fled  me.  Dodged  vigilance 
committees  with  me,  laid  out  in  the  brush 
with  me  with  his  hand  in  mine  when  the 
sheriff's  deputies  were  huntin'  me  ;  shut  his 
jaw  close  when,  if  he  squealed,  he  'd  have 
been  called  another  victim  of  the  brute 
Horncastle,  and  been  as  petted  and  canoodled 
as  you." 

It  would  have  been  difficult  for  any  one 
but  the  woman  who  knew  the  man  before 
her  to  have  separated  his  brutish  delight  in 
paining  her  from  another  feeling  she  had 
never  dreamt  him  capable  of,  —  an  intense 
and  fierce  pride  in  his  affection  for  his  child. 
And  it  was  the  more  hopeless  to  her  that  it 
was  not  the  mere  sentiment  of  reciprocation, 
but  the  material  instinct  of  paternity  in  its 


THREE  PARTNERS.  135 

most  animal  form.  And  it  seemed  horrible 
to  her  that  the  only  outcome  of  what  had 
been  her  own  wild,  youthful  passion  for  this 
brute  was  this  love  for  the  flesh  of  her  flesh, 
for  she  was  more  and  more  conscious  as  he 
spoke  that  her  yearning  for  the  boy  was  the 
yearning  of  an  equally  dumb  and  unreason- 
ing maternity.  They  had  met  again  as 
animals — in  fear,  contempt,  and  anger  of 
each  other ;  but  the  animal  had  triumphed 
in  both. 

When  she  spoke  again  it  was  as  the 
woman  of  the  world,  —  the  woman  who  had 
laughed  two  years  ago  at  the  irrepressible 
Barker.  "  It 's  a  new  thing,"  she  said, 
languidly  turning  her  rings  on  her  fingers, 
"to  see  you  in  the  role  of  a  doting  father. 
And  may  I  ask  how  long  you  have  had  this 
amiable  weakness,  and  how  long  it  is  to 
last?" 

To  her  surprise  and  the  keen  retaliating 
delight  of  her  sex,  a  conscious  flush  covered 
his  face  to  the  crisp  edges  of  his  black  and 
matted  beard.  For  a  moment  she  hoped 
that  he  had  lied.  But,  to  her  greater  sur- 
prise, he  stammered  in  equal  frankness : 
"  It 's  growed  upon  me  for  the  last  five  years 


136  THREE  PARTNERS. 

—  ever  since  I  was  alone  with  him."  He 
stopped,  cleared  his  throat,  and  then,  stand- 
ing up  before  her,  said  in  his  former  voice, 
but  with  a  more  settled  and  intense  deliber- 
ation :  "  You  waiiter  know  how  long  it  will 
last,  do  ye  ?  Well,  you  know  your  special 
friend,  Jim  Stacy  —  the  big  millionaire  — 
the  great  Jim  of  the  Stock  Exchange  —  the 
man  that  pinches  the  money  market  of  Cali- 
forny  between  his  finger  and  thumb  and 
makes  it  squeal  in  New  York  —  the  man 
who  shakes  the  stock  market  when  he 
sneezes  ?  Well,  it  will  go  on  until  that  man 
is  a  beggar  ;  until  he  has  to  borrow  a  dime 
for  his  breakfast,  and  slump  out  of  his  lunch 
with  a  cent's  worth  of  rat  poison  or  a  bullet 
in  his  head !  It  '11  go  on  until  his  old  part- 
ner —  that  softy  George  Barker  —  comes  to 
the  bottom  of  his  d — d  fool  luck  and  is  a 
penny-a-liner .  for  the  papers  and  a  hanger- 
round  at  free  lunches,  and  his  scatter-brained 
wife  runs  away  with  another  man  !  It  '11  go 
on  until  the  high-toned  Demorest,  the  last 
of  those  three  little  tin  gods  of  Heavy  Tree 
Hill,  will  have  to  climb  down,  and  will  know 
what  /  feel  and  what  he 's  made  me  feel, 
and  will  wish  himself  in  hell  before  he  ever 


THREE  PARTNERS.  137 

made  the  big  strike  on  Heavy  Tree  !  That 's 
me  !  You  hear  me  !  I  'm  shoutin' !  It  '11 
last  till  then !  It  may  be  next  week,  next 
month,  next  year.  But  it  '11  come.  And 
when  it  does  come  you  '11  see  me  and  Eddy 
just  waltzin'  in  and  takin'  the  chief  seats  in 
the  synagogue !  And  you  '11  have  a  free 
pass  to  the  show !  " 

Either  he  was  too  intoxicated  with  his 
vengeful  vision,  or  the  shadows  of  the  room 
had  deepened,  but  he  did  not  see  the  quick 
flush  that  had  risen  to  his  wife's  face  with 
this  allusion  to  Barker,  nor  the  after-settling 
of  her  handsome  features  into  a  dogged 
determination  equal  to  his  own.  His  blind 
fury  against  the  three  partners  did  not  touch 
her  curiosity  ;  she  was  only  struck  with  the 
evident  depth  of  his  emotion.  He  had 
never  been  a  braggart ;  his  hostility  had 
always  been  lazy  and  cynical.  Remember- 
ing this,  she  had  a  faint  stirring  of  respect 
for  the  undoubted  courage  and  consciousness 
of  strength  shown  in  this  wild  but  single- 
handed  crusade  against  wealth  and  power ; 
rather,  perhaps,  it  seemed  to  her  to  condone 
her  own  weakness  in  her  youthful  and  in- 
explicable passion  for  him.  No  wonder  she 
had  submitted. 


138  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"Then  you  have  nothing  more  to  tell 
me  ? "  she  said  after  a  pause,  rising  and 
going  towards  the  mantel. 

"You  needn't  light  up  for  me,"  he  re- 
turned, rising  also.  "  I  am  going.  Unless," 
he  added,  with  his  coarse  laugh,  "  you  think 
it  would  n't  look  well  for  Mrs.  Horncastle 
to  have  been  sitting  in  the  dark  with  —  a 
stranger  !  "  He  paused  as  she  contemptu- 
ously put  down  the  candlestick  and  threw 
the  unlit  match  into  the  grate.  "  No,  I  've 
nothing  more  to  tell.  He 's  a  fancy-looking 
pup.  You  'd  take  him  for  twenty-one, 
though  he  's  only  sixteen  —  clean-limbed 
and  perfect  —  but  for  one  thing  "  —  He 
stopped.  He  met  her  quick  look  of  inter- 
rogation, however,  with  a  lowering  silence 
that,  nevertheless,  changed  again  as  he  sur- 
veyed her  erect  figure  by  the  faint  light  of 
the  window  with  a  sardonic  smile.  "  He 
favors  you,  I  think,  and  in  all  but  one  thing, 
too." 

"  And  that  ?  "  she  queried  coldly,  as  he 
seemed  to  hesitate. 

"  He  ain't  ashamed  of  we,"  he  returned, 
with  a  laugh. 

The  door  closed  behind  him ;  she  heard 


THESE  PARTNERS.  139 

his  heavy  step  descend  the  creaking  stairs  ; 
he  was  gone.  She  went  to  the  window  and 
threw  it  open,  as  if  to  get  rid  of  the  atmos- 
phere charged  with  his  presence,  —  a  pre- 
sence still  so  potent  that  she  now  knew  that 
for  the  last  five  minutes  she  had  been,  to 
her  horror,  struggling  against  its  magnet- 
ism. She  even  recoiled  now  at  the  thought 
of  her  child,  as  if,  in  these  new  confidences 
over  it,  it  had  revived  the  old  intimacy  in 
this  link  of  their  common  flesh.  She  looked 
down  from  her  window  on  the  square  shoul- 
ders, thick  throat,  and  crisp  matted  hair  of 
her  husband  as  he  vanished  in  the  darkness, 
and  drew  a  breath  of  freedom,  —  a  freedom 
not  so  much  from  him  as  from  her  own 
weakness  that  he  was  bearing  away  with  him 
into  the  exonerating  night. 

She  shut  the  window  and  sank  down  in 
her  chair  again,  but  in  the  encompassing 
and  compassionate  obscurity  of  the  room. 
And  this  was  the  man  she  had  loved  and  for 
whom  she  had  wrecked  her  young  life !  Or 
was  it  love  ?  and,  if  not,  how  was  she  better 
than  he  ?  Worse ;  for  he  was  more  loyal 
to  that  passion  that  had  brought  them  to- 
gether and  its  responsibilities  than  she  was. 


140  THESE  PARTNERS. 

She  had  suffered  the  perils  and  pangs  of 
maternity,  and  yet  had  only  the  mere  ani- 
mal yearning  for  her  offspring,  while  he  had 
taken  over  the  toil  and  duty,  and  even  the 
devotion,  of  parentage  himself.  But  then 
she  remembered  also  how  he  had  fascinated 
her  —  a  simple  schoolgirl  —  by  his  sheer 
domineering  strength,  and  how  the  objec- 
tions of  her  parents  to  this  coarse  and  com- 
mon man  had  forced  her  into  a  clandestine 
intimacy  that  ended  in  her  complete  subjec- 
tion to  him.  She  remembered  the  birth  of 
an  infant  whose  concealment  from  her  par- 
ents and  friends  was  compassed  by  his  low 
cunning;  she  remembered  the  late  atone- 
ment of  marriage  preferred  by  the  man  she 
had  already  begun  to  loathe  and  fear,  and 
who  she  now  believed  was  eager  only  for 
her  inheritance.  She  remembered  her  ab- 
ject compliance  through  the  greater  fear  of 
the  world,  the  stormy  scenes  that  followed 
their  ill-omened  union,  her  final  abandon- 
ment of  her  husband,  and  the  efforts  of  her 
friends  and  family  who  had  rescued  the  last 
of  her  property  from  him.  She  was  glad 
she  remembered  it ;  she  dwelt  upon  it,  upon 
his  cruelty,  his  coarseness  and  vulgarity, 


THREE  PARTNERS.  141 

until  she  saw,  as  she  honestly  believed,  the 
hidden  springs  of  his  affection  for  their 
child.  It  was  his  child  in  nature,  however 
it  might  have  favored  her  in  looks ;  it  was 
his  own  brutal  self  he  was  worshiping  in 
his  brutal  progeny.  How  else  could  it  have 
ignored  her  —  its  own  mother  ?  She  never 
doubted  the  truth  of  what  he  had  told  her 
—  she  had  seen  it  in  his  own  triumphant 
eyes.  And  yet  she  would  have  made  a  kind 
mother ;  she  remembered  with  a  smile  and 
a  slight  rising  of  color  the  affection  of  Bar- 
ker's baby  for  her ;  she  remembered  with  a 
deepening  of  that  color  the  thrill  of  satisfac- 
tion she  had  felt  in  her  husband's  fulmina- 
tion  against  Mrs.  Barker,  and,  more  than 
all,  she  felt  in  his  blind  and  foolish  hatred 
of  Barker  himself  a  delicious  condonation  of 
the  strange  feeling  that  had  sprung  up  in 
her  heart  for  Barker's  simple,  straightfor- 
ward nature.  How  could  he  understand, 
how  could  they  understand  (by  the  plural 
she  meant  Mrs.  Barker  and  Horncastle),  a 
character  so  innately  noble.  In  her  strange 
attraction  towards  him  she  had  felt  a  charm- 
ing sense  of  what  she  believed  was  a  supe- 
rior and  even  matronly  protection  ;  in  the 


142  THREE  PARTNERS. 

utter  isolation  of  her  life  now  —  and  with 
her  husband's  foolish  abuse  of  him  ringing 
in  her  ears  —  it  seemed  a  sacred  duty. 
She  had  lost  a  son.  Providence  had  sent 
her  an  ideal  friend  to  replace  him.  And  this 
was  quite  consistent,  too,  with  a  faint  smile 
that  began  to  play  about  her  mouth  as  she 
recalled  some  instances  of  Barker's  delight- 
ful and  irresistible  youthfulness. 

There  was  a  clatter  of  hoofs  and  the 
sound  of  many  voices  from  the  street.  Mrs. 
Horncastle  knew  it  was  the  down  coach 
changing  horses ;  it  would  be  off  again  in  a 
few  moments,  and,  no  doubt,  bearing  her 
husband  away  with  it.  A  new  feeling  of 
relief  came  over  her  as  she  at  last  heard  the 
warning  "  All  aboard  !  "  and  the  great  vehi- 
cle clattered  and  rolled  into  the  darkness, 
trailing  its  burning  lights  across  her  walls 
and  ceiling.  But  now  she  heard  steps  on 
the  staircase,  a  pause  before  her  room,  a 
whisper  of  voices,  the  opening  of  the  door, 
the  rustle  of  a  skirt,  and  a  little  feminine 
cry  of  protest  as  a  man  apparently  tried  to 
follow  the  figure  into  the  room.  "  No,  no  ! 
I  tell  you  no  !  "  remonstrated  the  woman's 
voice  in  a  hurried  whisper.  "  It  won't  do. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  143 

Everybody  knows  me  here.  You  must  not 
come  in  now.  You  must  wait  to  be  an- 
nounced by  the  servant.  Hush !  Go  !  " 

There  was  a  slight  struggle,  the  sound  of 
a  kiss,  and  the  woman  succeeded  in  finally 
shutting  the  door.  Then  she  walked  slowly, 
but  with  a  certain  familiarity  towards  the 
mantel,  struck  a  match  and  lit  the  candle. 
The  light  shone  upon  the  bright  eyes  and 
slightly  flushed  face  of  Mrs.  Barker.  But 
the  motionless  woman  in  the  chair  had  re- 
cognized her  voice  and  the  voice  of  her  com- 
panion at  once.  And  then  their  eyes  met. 

Mrs.  Barker  drew  back,  but  did  not  utter 
a  cry.  Mrs.  Horncastle,  with  eyes  even 
brighter  than  her  companion's,  smiled.  The 
red  deepened  in  Mrs.  Barker's  cheek. 

"  This  is  my  room !  "  she  said  indignantly, 
with  a  sweeping  gesture  around  the  walls. 

"  I  should  judge  so,"  said  Mrs.  Horn- 
castle,  following  the  gesture ;  "  but,"  she 
added  quietly,  "  they  put  me  into  it.  It 
appears,  however,  they  did  not  expect  you." 

Mrs.  Barker  saw  her  mistake.  "No, 
no,"  she  said  apologetically,  "  of  course  not." 
Then  she  added,  with  nervous  volubility, 
sitting  down  and  tugging  at  her  gloves, 


144  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  You  see,  I  just  ran  down  from  Marysville 
to  take  a  look  at  my  father's  old  house  on 
my  way  to  Hymettus.  I  hope  I  have  n't 
disturbed  you.  Perhaps,"  she  said,  with 
sudden  eagerness,  "  you  were  asleep  when  I 
came  in !  " 

"  No,"  said  Mrs.  Horncastle,  "  I  was  not 
sleeping  nor  dreaming.  I  heard  you  come 
in." 

"  Some  of  these  men  are  such  idiots," 
said  Mrs.  Barker,  with  a  half-hysterical 
laugh.  "  They  seem  to  think  if  a  woman 
accepts  the  least  courtesy  from  them  they  've 
a  right  to  be  familiar.  But  I  fancy  that 
fellow  was  a  little  astonished  when  I  shut 
the  door  in  his  face." 

" I  fancy  he  was"  returned  Mrs.  Horn- 
castle  dryly.  "  But  I  should  n't  call  Mr. 
Van  Loo  an  idiot.  He  has  the  reputation 
of  being  a  cautious  business  man." 

Mrs.  Barker  bit  her  lip.  Her  companion 
had  been  recognized.  She  rose  with  a  slight 
flirt  of  her  skirt.  "  I  suppose  I  must  go 
and  get  a  room;  there  was  nobody  in  the 
office  when  I  came.  Everything  is  badly 
managed  here  since  my  father  took  away  the 
best  servants  to  Hymettus."  She  moved 


THREE  PARTNERS.  145 

with  affected  carelessness  towards  the  door, 
when  Mrs.  Horncastle,  without  rising  from 
her  seat,  said :  — 

"  Why  not  stay  here  ?  " 

Mrs.  Barker  brightened  for  a  moment. 
"  Oh,"  she  said,  with  polite  deprecation,  "  I 
could  n't  think  of  turning  you  out." 

"  I  don't  intend  you  shall,"  said  Mrs. 
Horncastle.  "  We  will  stay  here  together 
until  you  go  with  me  to  Hymettus,  or  until 
Mr.  Van  Loo  leaves  the  hotel.  He  will 
hardly  attempt  to  come  in  here  again  if  I 
remain." 

Mrs.  Barker,  with  a  half-laugh,  sat  down 
irresolutely.  Mrs.  Horncastle  gazed  at  her 
curiously ;  she  was  evidently  a  novice  in  this 
sort  of  thing.  But,  strange  to  say,  —  and  I 
leave  the  ethics  of  this  for  the  sex  to  settle, 
—  the  fact  did  not  soften  Mrs.  Horncastle's 
heart,  nor  in  the  least  qualify  her  attitude 
towards  the  younger  woman.  After  an  awk- 
ward pause  Mrs.  Barker  rose  again.  "  Well, 
it 's  very  good  of  you,  and —  and  —  I  '11  just 
run  out  and  wash  my  hands  and  get  the  dust 
off  me,  and  come  back." 

"  No,  Mrs,  Barker,"  said  Mrs.  Horncastle, 
rising  and  approaching  her,  "  you  will  first 


146  THREE  PARTNERS. 

wash  your  hands  of  this  Mr.  Van  Loo,  and 
get  some  of  the  dust  of  the  rendezvous  off 
you  before  you  do  anything  else.  You  can 
do  it  by  simply  telling  him,  should  you  meet 
him  in  the  hall,  that  I  was  sitting  here  when 
he  came  in,  and  heard  everything  !  Depend 
upon  it,  he  won't  trouble  you  again." 

But  Mrs.  Barker,  though  inexperienced  in 
love,  was  a  good  fighter.  The  best  of  the 
sex  are.  She  dropped  into  the  rocking- 
chair,  and  began  rocking  backwards  and  for- 
wards while  still  tugging  at  her  gloves,  and 
said,  in  a  gradually  warming  voice,  "  I  cer- 
tainly shall  not  magnify  Mr.  Van  Loo's 
silliness  to  that  importance.  And  I  have 
yet  to  learn  what  you  mean  by  talking  about 
a  rendezvous !  And  I  want  to  know,"  she 
continued,  suddenly  stopping  her  rocking  and 
tilting  the  rockers  impertinently  behind  her, 
as,  with  her  elbows  squared  on  the  chair 
arms,  she  tilted  her  own  face  defiantly  up 
into  Mrs.  Horncastle's,  "  how  a  woman  in 
your  position  —  who  does  n't  live  with  her 
husband  —  dares  to  talk  to  me  I " 

There  was  a  lull  before  the  storm.  Mrs. 
Horncastle  approached  nearer,  and,  laying 
her  hand  on  the  back  of  the  chair,  leaned 


THREE  PARTNERS.  147 

over  her,  and,  with  a  white  face  and  a  me- 
tallic ring  in  her  voice,  said :  "  It  is  just  be- 
cause I  am  a  woman  in  my  position  that  I 
do  !  It  is  because  I  don't  live  with  my  hus- 
band that  I  can  tell  you  what  it  will  be 
when  you  no  longer  live  with  yours  —  which 
will  be  the  inevitable  result  of  what  you  are 
now  doing.  It  is  because  I  was  hi  this  posi- 
tion that  the  very  man  who  is  pursuing  you, 
because  he  thinks  you  are  discontented  with 
your  husband,  once  thought  he  could  pursue 
me  because  I  had  left  mine.  You  are  here 
with  him  alone,  without  the  knowledge  of 
your  husband ;  call  it  folly,  caprice,  vanity, 
or  what  you  like,  it  can  have  but  one  end  — 
to  put  you  in  my  place  at  last,  to  be  consid- 
ered the  fair  game  afterwards  for  any  man 
who  may  succeed  him.  You  can  test  him 
and  the  truth  of  what  I  say  by  telling  him 
now  that  I  heard  all." 

"  Suppose  he  does  n't  care  what  you  have 
heard,"  said  Mrs.  Barker  sharply.  "  Sup- 
pose he  says  nobody  would  believe  you,  if 
'  telling '  is  your  game.  Suppose  he  is  a 
friend  of  my  husband  and  he  thinks  him  H 
much  better  guardian  of  my  reputation  than 
a  woman  like  you.  Suppose  he  should  be 


148  THREE  PARTNERS. 

the  first  one  to  tell  ray  husband  of  the  foul 
slander  invented  by  you  !  " 

For  an  instant  Mrs.  Horncastle  was  taken 
aback  by  the  audacity  of  the  woman  before 
her.  She  knew  the  simple  confidence  and 
boyish  trust  of  Barker  in  his  wife  in  spite 
of  their  sometimes  strained  relations,  and 
she  knew  how  difficult  it  would  be  to  shake 
it.  And  she  had  no  idea  of  betraying  Mrs. 
Barker's  secret  to  him,  though  she  had  made 
this  scene  in  his  interest.  She  had  wished 
to  save  Mrs.  Barker  from  a  compromising 
situation,  even  if  there  was  a  certain  vindic- 
tiveness  in  her  exposing  her  to  herself.  Yet 
she  knew  it  was  quite  possible  now,  if  Mrs. 
Barker  had  immediate  access  to  her  hus- 
band, that  she  would  convince  him  of  her 
perfect  innocence.  Nevertheless,  she  had 
still  great  confidence  in  Van  Loo's  fear  of 
scandal  and  his  utter  unmanliness.  She 
knew  he  was  not  in  love  with  Mrs.  Barker, 
and  this  puzzled  her  when  she  considered 
the  evident  risk  he  was  running  now.  Her 
face,  however,  betrayed  nothing.  She  drew 
back  from  Mrs.  Barker,  and,  with  an  indif- 
ferent and  graceful  gesture  towards  the 
door,  said,  as  she  leaned  against  the  mantel, 


THREE  PAETNEES.  149 

"  Go,  then,  and  see  this  much-abused  gentle- 
man, and  then  go  together  with  him  and 
make  peace  with  your  husband  —  even  on 
those  terms.  If  I  have  saved  you  from  the 
consequences  of  your  folly  I  shall  be  willing 
to  bear  even  his  blame." 

"  Whatever  I  do,"  said  Mrs.  Barker,  ris- 
ing hotly,  "  I  shall  not  stay  here  any  longer 
to  be  insulted."  She  flounced  out  of  the 
room  and  swept  down  the  staircase  into  the 
office.  Here  she  found  an  overworked  clerk, 
and  with  crimson  cheeks  and  flashing  eyes 
wanted  to  know  why  in  her  own  father's 
hotel  she  had  found  her  own  sitting-room 
engaged,  and  had  been  obliged  to  wait  half 
an  hour  before  she  could  be  shown  into  a 
decent  apartment  to  remove  her  hat  and 
cloak  in  ;  and  how  it  was  that  even  the  gen- 
tleman who  had  kindly  escorted  her  had 
evidently  been  unable  to  procure  her  any 
assistance.  She  said  this  in  a  somewhat 
high  voice,  which  might  have  reached  the 
ears  of  that  gentleman  had  he  been  in  the 
vicinity.  But  he  was  not,  and  she  was 
forced  to  meet  the  somewhat  dazed  apologies 
of  the  clerk  alone,  and  to  accompany  the 
chambermaid  to  a  room  only  a  few  paces 


150  THREE  PARTNERS. 

distant  from  the  one  she  had  quitted.  Here 
she  hastily  removed  her  outer  duster  and 
hat,  washed  her  hands,  and  consulted  her 
excited  face  in  the  mirror,  with  the  door 
ajar  and  an  ear  sensitively  attuned  to  any 
step  in  the  corridor.  But  all  this  was  effected 
so  rapidly  that  she  was  at  last  obliged  to  sit 
down  in  a  chair  near  the  half -opened  door, 
and  wait.  She  waited  five  minutes  —  ten 
—  but  still  no  footstep.  Then  she  went  out 
into  the  corridor  and  listened,  and  then, 
smoothing  her  face,  she  slipped  downstairs, 
past  the  door  of  that  hateful  room,  and 
reappeared  before  the  clerk  with  a  smiling 
but  somewhat  pale  and  languid  face.  She 
had  found  the  room  very  comfortable,  but  it 
was  doubtful  whether  she  would  stay  over 
night  or  go  on  to  Hymettus.  Had  anybody 
been  inquiring  for  her?  She  expected  to 
meet  friends.  No !  And  her  escort  —  the 
gentleman  who  came  with  her  —  was  possi- 
bly hi  the  billiard-room  or  the  bar  ? 

"  Oh  no  !     He  was  gone,"  said  the  clerk. 

"  Gone!  "  echoed  Mrs.  Barker.  "  Impos- 
sible! He  was  —  he  was  here  only  a  mo- 
ment ago." 

The  clerk  rang  a  bell  sharply.  The  sta- 
bleman appeared. 


THEEE  PARTNERS.  151 

"  That  tall,  smooth-faced  man,  in  a  high 
hat,  who  came  with  the  lady,"  said  the  clerk 
severely  and  concisely,  —  "  did  n't  you  tell 
me  he  was  gone  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  the  stableman. 

"  Are  you  sure  ?  "  interrupted  Mrs.  Bar- 
ker, with  a  dazzling  smile  that,  however, 
masked  a  sudden  tightening  round  her  heart. 

"Quite  sure,  miss,"  said  the  stableman, 
"  for  he  was  in  the  yard  when  Steptoe  came, 
after  missing  the  coach.  He  wanted  a  buggy 
to  take  him  over  to  the  Divide.  We  had  n't 
one,  so  he  went  over  to  the  other  stables,  and 
he  did  n't  come  back,  so  I  reckon  he 's  gone. 
I  remember  it,  because  Steptoe  came  by  a 
minute  after  he'd  gone,  in  another  buggy, 
and  as  he  was  going  to  the  Divide,  too,  I 
wondered  why  the  gentleman  hadn't  gone 
with  him." 

"And  he  left  no  message  for  me?  He 
said  nothing?"  asked  Mrs.  Barker,  quite 
breathless,  but  still  smiling. 

"  He  said  nothin'  to  me  but  *  Is  n't  that 
Steptoe  over  there  ? '  when  Steptoe  came  in. 
And  I  remember  he  said  it  kinder  suddent 
—  as  if  he  was  reminded  o'  suthin'  he'd 
forgot ;  and  then  he  asked  for  a  buggy.  Y& 


152  THREE  PARTNERS. 

see,  miss,"  added  the  man,  with  a  certain 
rough  consideration  for  her  disappointment, 
"  that 's  niebbe  why  he  clean  forgot  to  leave 
a  message." 

Mrs.  Barker  turned  away,  and  ascended 
the  stairs.  Selfishness  is  quick  to  recognize 
selfishness,  and  she  saw  in  a  flash  the  reason 
of  Van  Loo's  abandonment  of  her.  Some 
fear  of  discovery  had  alarmed  him  ;  perhaps 
Steptoe  knew  her  husband ;  perhaps  he  had 
heard  of  Mrs.  Horncastle's  possession  of  the 
sitting-room  ;  perhaps  —  for  she  had  not 
seen  him  since  their  playful  struggle  at  the 
door  —  he  .had  recognized  the  woman  who 
was  there,  and  the  selfish  coward  had  run 
away.  Yes ;  Mrs.  Horncastle  was  right : 
she  had  been  only  a  miserable  dupe. 

Her  cheeks  blazed  as  she  entered  the  room 
she  had  just  quitted,  and  threw  herself  in  a 
chair  by  the  window.  She  bit  her  lip  as  she 
remembered  how  for  the  last  three  months 
she  had  been  slowly  yielding  to  Van  Loo's 
cautious  but  insinuating  solicitation,  from 
a  flirtation  in  the  San  Francisco  hotel  to  a 
clandestine  meeting  in  the  street;  from  a 
ride  in  the  suburbs  to  a  supper  in  a  fast 
restaurant  after  the  theatre.  Other  women 


THREE  PARTNERS.  153 

did  it  who  were  fashionable  and  rich,  as  Van 
Loo  had  pointed  out  to  her.  Other  fashion- 
able women  also  gambled  in  stocks,  and  had 
their  private  broker  in  a  "  Charley  "  or  a 
"  Jack."  Why  should  not  Mrs.  Barker 
have  business  with  a  "  Paul "  Van  Loo, 
particularly  as  this  fast  craze  permitted  se- 
cret meetings?  —  for  business  of  this  kind 
could  not  be  conducted  in  public,  and  per- 
mitted the  fair  gambler  to  call  at  private 
offices  without  fear  and  without  reproach. 
Mrs.  Barker's  vanity,  Mrs.  Barker's  love  of 
ceremony  and  form,  Mrs.  Barker's  snobbish- 
ness, were  flattered  by  the  attentions  of  this 
polished  gentleman  with  a  foreign  name, 
which  even  had  the  flavor  of  nobility,  who 
never  picked  up  her  fan  and  handed  it  to 
her  without  bowing,  and  always  rose  when 
she  entered  the  room.  Mrs.  Barker's  scant 
schoolgirl  knowledge  was  touched  by  this 
gentleman,  who  spoke  French  fluently,  and 
delicately  explained  to  her  the  libretto  of  a 
risky  opera  bouffe.  And  now  she  had  finally 
yielded  to  a  meeting  out  of  San  Francisco 

—  and  an  ostensible  visit  —  still  as  a  specu- 
lator —  to  one  or  two  mining  districts  — 

—  with  her  broker.    This  was  the  boldest  of 


154  THESE  PARTNERS. 

her  steps  —  an  original  idea  of  the  fashion- 
able  Van  Loo  —  which,  no  doubt,  in  time 
would  become  a  craze,  too.  But  it  was  a 
long  step  —  and  there  was  a  streak  of  rustic 
decorum  in  Mrs.  Barker's  nature  —  the  in- 
stinct that  made  Kitty  Carter  keep  a  per- 
fectly secluded  and  distinct  sitting-room  in 
the  days  when  she  served  her  father's  guests 
—  that  now  had  impelled  her  to  make  it  a 
proviso  that  the  first  step  of  her  journey 
should  be  from  her  old  home  in  her  father's 
hotel.  It  was  this  instinct  of  the  proprieties 
that  had  revived  in  her  suddenly  at  the  door 
of  the  old  sitting-room. 

Then  a  new  phase  of  the  situation  flashed 
upon  her.  It  was  Bard  for  her  vanity  to 
accept  Van  Loo's  desertion  as  voluntary  and 
final.  What  if  that  hateful  woman  had 
lured  him  away  by  some  trick  or  artfully 
designed  message  ?  She  was  capable  of  such 
meanness  to  insure  the  fulfillment  of  her 
prophecy.  Or,  more  dreadful  thought,  what 
if  she  had  some  hold  on  his  affections  —  she 
had  said  that  he  had  pursued  her ;  or,  more 
infamous  still,  there  were  some  secret  un- 
derstanding between  them,  and  that  she  — 
Mrs.  Barker  —  was  the  dupe  of  them  both  I 


THREE  PARTNERS.  155 

What  was  she  doing  in  the  hotel  at  such  a 
moment  ?  What  was  her  story  of  going  to 
Hymettus  but  a  lie  as  transparent  as  her 
own  ?  The  tortures  of  jealousy,  which  is  as 
often  the  incentive  as  it  is  the  result  of  pas- 
sion, began  to  rack  her.  She  had  probably 
yet  known  no  real  passion  for  this  man ;  but 
with  the  thought  of  his  abandoning  her,  and 
the  conception  of  his  faithlessness,  came  the 
wish  to  hold  and  keep  him  that  was  danger- 
ously near  it.  What  if  he  were  even  then  in 
that  room,  the  room  where  she  had  said  she 
would  not  stay  to  be  insulted,  and  they,  thus 
secured  against  her  intrusion,  were  laughing 
at  her  now  ?  She  half  rose  at  the  thought, 
but  a  sound  of  a  horse's  hoofs  in  the  stable- 
yard  arrested  her.  She  ran  to  the  window 
which  gave  upon  it,  and,  crouching  down  be- 
side it,  listened  eagerly.  The  clatter  of 
hoofs  ceased  ;  the  stableman  was  talking  to 
some  one  ;  suddenly  she  heard  the  stable- 
man say,  "  Mrs.  Barker  is  here."  Her  heart 
leaped,  —  Van  Loo  had  returned. 

But  here  the  voice  of  the  other  man 
which  she  had  not  yet  heard  arose  for  the 
first  time  clear  and  distinct.  "  Are  you 
quite  sure  ?  I  did  n't  know  she  left  San 
Francisco." 


156  THREE  PAETNEE8. 

The  room  reeled  around  her.  The  voice 
was  George  Barker's,  her  husband  !  "  Very 
well,"  he  continued.  "  You  need  n't  put  up 
my  horse  for  the  night.  I  may  take  her 
back  a  little  later  in  the  buggy." 

In  another  moment  she  had  swept  down 
the  passage,  and  burst  into  the  other  room. 
Mrs.  Horncastle  was  sitting  by  the  table 
with  a  book  in  her  hand.  She  started  as 
the  half-maddened  woman  closed  the  door, 
locked  it  behind  her,  and  cast  herself  on  her 
knees  at  her  feet. 

"  My  husband  is  here,"  she  gasped. 
"  What  shall  I  do  ?  In  Heaven's  name  help 
me!" 

"  Is  Van  Loo  still  here  ? "  said  Mrs. 
Horncastle  quickly. 

"  No  ;  gone.     He  went  when  I  came." 

Mrs.  Horncastle  caught  her  hand  and 
looked  intently  into  her  frightened  face. 
"  Then  what  have  you  to  fear  from  your 
husband  ?  "  she  said  abruptly. 

"  You  don't  understand.  He  did  n't  know 
I  was  here.  He  thought  me  in  San  Fran- 
cisco." 

"  Does  he  know  it  now  ?  " 

"  Yes.     I  heard  the  stableman  tell  him. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  157 

Could  n't  you  say  I  came  here  with  you ; 
that  we  were  here  together  ;  that  it  was  just 
a  little  freak  of  ours  ?  Oh,  do  !  " 

Mrs.  Horncastle  thought  a  moment. 
"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  we  '11  see  him  here  to- 
gether." 

"  Oh  no  !  no !  "  said  Mrs.  Barker  sud- 
denly, clinging  to  her  dress  and  looking 
fearfully  towards  the  door.  "  I  could  n't, 
could  n't  see  him  now.  Say  I  'm  sick,  tired 
out,  gone  to  my  room." 

"  But  you  '11  have  to  see  him  later,"  said 
Mrs.  Horncastle  wonderingly. 

"  Yes,  but  he  may  go  first.  I  heard  him 
tell  them  not  to  put  up  his  horse." 

"  Good !  "  said  Mrs.  Horncastle  sud- 
denly. "  Go  to  your  room  and  lock  the 
door,  and  I  '11  come  to  you  later.  Stop ! 
Would  Mr.  Barker  be  likely  to  disturb  you 
if  I  told  him  you  would  like  to  be  alone  ?  " 

"  No,  he  never  does.  I  often  tell  him 
that." 

Mrs.  Horncastle  smiled  faintly.  "  Come, 
quick,  then,"  she  said,  "for  he  may  come 
here  first." 

Opening  the  door  she  passed  into  the  half 
dark  and  empty  hall.  "  Now  run !  "  She 


158  THREE  PARTNERS. 

heard  the  quick  rustle  of  Mrs.  Barker's  skirt 
die  away  in  the  distance,  the  opening  and 
shutting  of  a  door  —  silence  —  and  then 
turned  back  into  her  own  room. 

She  was  none  too  soon.  Presently  she 
heard  Barker's  voice  saying,  "  Thank  you,  I 
can  find  the  way,"  his  still  buoyant  step  on 
the  staircase,  and  then  saw  his  brown  curls 
rising  above  the  railing.  The  light  stream- 
ing through  the  open  door  of  the  sitting- 
room  into  the  half-lit  hall  had  partially 
dazzled  him,  and,  already  bewildered,  he 
was  still  more  dazzled  at  the  unexpected 
apparition  of  the  smiling  face  and  bright 
eyes  of  Mrs.  Horncastle  standing  in  the 
doorway. 

"  You  have  fairly  caught  us,"  she  said, 
with  charming  composure  ;  "  but  I  had  half 
a  mind  to  let  you  wander  round  the  hotel  a 
little  longer.  Come  in."  Barker  followed 
her  in  mechanically,  and  she  closed  the  door. 
"  Now,  sit  down,"  she  said  gayly,  "  and  tell 
me  how  you  knew  we  were  here,  and  what 
you  mean  by  surprising  us  at  this  hour." 

Barker's  ready  color  always  rose  on  meet 
ing  Mrs.  Horncastle,  for  whom  he  enter- 
tained a  respectful  admiration,  rot.  without 


THESE  PARTNERS.  159 

some  fear  of  her  worldly  superiority.  He 
flushed,  bowed,  and  stared  somewhat  blankly 
around  the  room,  at  the  familiar  walls,  at 
the  chair  from  which  Mrs.  Horncastle  had 
just  risen,  and  finally  at  his  wife's  glove, 
which  Mrs.  Horncastle  had  a  moment  before 
ostentatiously  thrown  on  the  table.  Seeing 
which  she  pounced  upon  it  with  assumed 
archness,  and  pretended  to  conceal  it. 

"I  had  no  idea  my  wife  was  here,"  he 
said  at  last,  "  and  I  was  quite  surprised 
when  the  man  told  me,  for  she  had  not  writ- 
ten to  me  about  it."  As  his  face  was  bright- 
ening, she  for  the  first  time  noticed  that  his 
frank  gray  eyes  had  an  abstracted  look,  and 
there  was  a  faint  line  of  contraction  on  his 
youthful  forehead.  "  Still  less,"  he  added, 
"  did  I  look  for  the  pleasure  of  meeting  you. 
For  I  only  came  here  to  inquire  about  my 
old  partner,  Demorest,  who  arrived  from 
Europe  a  few  days  ago,  and  who  should 
have  reached  Hymettus  early  this  afternoon. 
But  now  I  hear  he  came  all  the  way  by 
coach  instead  of  by  rail,  and  got  off  at  the 
cross-road,  and  we  must  have  passed  each 
other  on  the  different  trails.  So  my  journey 
would  have  gone  for  nothing,  only  that  I 


160  THREE  PARTNERS. 

now  shall  have  the  pleasure  of  going  back 
with  you  and  Kitty.  It  will  be  a  lovely 
drive  by  moonlight." 

Relieved  by  this  revelation,  it  was  easy 
work  for  Mrs.  Horncastle  to  launch  out  into 
a  playful,  tantalizing,  witty  —  but,  I  grieve 
to  say,  entirely  imaginative  —  account  of  her 
escapade  with  Mrs.  Barker.  How,  left  alone 
at  the  San  Francisco  hotel  while  their  gen- 
tlemen friends  were  enjoying  themselves  at 
Hymettus,  they  resolved  upon  a  little  trip, 
partly  for  the  purpose  of  looking  into  some 
small  investments  of  their  own,  and  partly 
for  the  fun  of  the  thing.  What  funny 
experiences  they  had  !  How,  in  particular, 
one  horrid  inquisitive,  vulgar  wretch  had 
been  boring  a  European  fellow  passenger 
who  was  going  to  Hymettus,  finally  asking 
him  where  he  had  come  from  last,  and  when 
he  answered  "  Hymettus,"  thought  the  man 
was  insulting  him  — 

"  But,"  interrupted  the  laughing  Barker, 
"  that  passenger  may  have  been  Demorest, 
who  has  just  come  from  Greece,  and  surely 
Kitty  would  have  recognized  him." 

Mrs.  Horncastle  instantly  saw  her  blun- 
der, and  not  only  retrieved  it,  but  turned  it 


THREE  PARTNERS.  161 

to  account.  Ah,  yes !  but  by  that  time  poor 
Kitty,  unused  to  long  journeys  and  the  heat, 
was  utterly  fagged  out,  was  asleep,  and  per- 
fectly unrecognizable  in  veils  and  dusters  on 
the  back  seat  of  the  coach.  And  this  brought 
her  to  the  point  —  which  was,  that  she  was 
sorry  to  say,  on  arriving,  the  poor  child  was 
nearly  wild  with  a  headache  from  fatigue 
and  had  gone  to  bed,  and  she  had  promised 
not  to  disturb  her. 

The  undisguised  amusement,  mingled  with 
relief,  that  had  overspread  Barker's  face 
during  this  lively  recital  might  have  pricked 
the  conscience  of  Mrs.  Horncastle,  but  for 
some  reason  I  fear  it  did  not.  But  it  em- 
boldened her  to  go  on.  "  I  said  I  promised 
her  that  I  would  see  she  was  n't  disturbed  ; 
but,  of  course,  now  that  you,  her  husband^ 
have  come,  if  "  — 

"  Not  for  worlds,"  interrupted  Barker 
earnestly.  "  I  know  poor  Kitty's  headaches, 
and  I  never  disturb  her,  poor  child,  except 
when  I  'm  thoughtless."  And  here  one  of 
the  most  thoughtful  men  in  the  world  in  his 
sensitive  consideration  of  others  beamed  at 
her  with  such  frank  and  wonderful  eyes  that 
the  arch  hypocrite  before  him  with  difficulty 


102  THREE  PARTNERS. 

suppressed  a  hysterical  desire  to  laugh,  and 
felt  the  conscious  blood  flush  her  to  the  root 
of  her  hair.  "  You  know,"  he  went  on,  with 
a  sigh,  half  of  relief  and  half  of  reminiscence, 
"  that  I  often  think  I  'm  a  great  bother  to 
a  clear-headed,  sensible  girl  like  Kitty.  She 
knows  people  so  much  better  than  I  do. 
She 's  wonderfully  equipped  for  the  world, 
and,  you  see,  I  'm  only  '  lucky,'  as  every- 
body says,  and  I  dare  say  part  of  my  luck 
was  to  have  got  her.  I  'm  very  glad  she 's 
a  friend  of  yours,  you  know,  for  somehow  I 
fancied  always  that  you  were  not  interested 
in  her,  or  that  you  did  n't  understand  each 
other  until  now.  It 's  odd  that  nice  women 
don't  always  like  nice  women,  is  n't  it  ?  I  'm 
glad  she  was  with  you ;  I  was  quite  startled 
to  learn  she  was  here,  and  could  n't  make 
it  out.  I  thought  at  first  she  might  have 
got  anxious  about  our  little  Sta,  who  is 
with  me  and  the  nurse  at  Hymettus.  But 
I  'm  glad  it  was  only  a  lark.  I  should  n't 
wonder/'  lie  added,  with  a  laugh,  "  although 
she  always  declares  she  is  n't  one  of  those 
'  doting,  idiotic  mothers/  that  she  found  it 
a  little  dull  without  the  boy,  for  all  she 
thought  it  was  better  for  me  to  take  him 
somewhere  for  a  change  of  air." 


THESE  PARTNERS.  163 

The  situation  was  becoming  more  difficult 
for  Mrs.  Horncastle  than  she  had  conceived. 
There  had  been  a  certain  excitement  in  its 
first  direct  appeal  to  her  tact  and  courage, 
and  even,  she  believed,  an  unselfish  desire 
to  save  the  relations  between  husband  and 
wife  if  she  could.  But  she  had  not  calcu- 
lated upon  his  unconscious  revelations,  nor 
upon  their  effect  upon  herself.  She  had 
concluded  to  believe  that  Kitty  had,  in  a 
moment  of  folly,  lent  herself  to  this  hare- 
brained escapade,  but  it  now  might  be  pos- 
sible that  it  had  been  deliberately  planned. 
Kitty  had  sent  her  husband  and  child  away 
three  weeks  before.  Had  she  told  the  whole 
truth  ?  How  long  had  this  been  going  on  ? 
And  if  the  soulless  Van  Loo  had  deserted 
her  now,  was  it  not,  perhaps,  the  miserable 
ending  of  an  intrigue  rather  than  its  begin- 
ning? Had  she  been  as  great  a  dupe  of 
this  woman  as  the  husband  before  her?  A 
new  and  double  consciousness  came  over  her 
that  for  a  moment  prevented  her  from  meet- 
ing his  honest  eyes.  She  felt  the  shame  of 
being  an  accomplice  mingled  with  a  fierce 
joy  at  the  idea  of  a  climax  that  might  sepa- 
rate him  from  his  wife  forever. 


164  THESE  PARTNERS. 

Luckily  he  did  not  notice  it,  but  with  a 
continued  sense  of  relief  threw  himself  back 
in  his  chair,  and  glancing  familiarly  round 
the  walls  broke  into  his  youthful  laugh. 
"  Lord !  how  I  remember  this  room  in  the 
old  days.  It  was  Kitty's  own  private  sit- 
ting-room, you  know,  and  I  used  to  think  it 
looked  just  as  fresh  and  pretty  as  she.  I 
used  to  think  her  crayon  drawing  wonderful, 
and  still  more  wonderful  that  she  should 
have  that  unnecessary  talent  when  it  was 
quite  enough  for  her  to  be  just  '  Kitty.' 
You  know,  don't  you,  how  you  feel  at  those 
times  when  you  're  quite  happy  in  being  in- 
ferior "  —  He  stopped  a  moment  with  a 
sudden  recollection  that  Mrs.  Horncastle's 
marriage  had  been  notoriously  unhappy. 
"  I  mean,"  he  went  on  with  a  shy  little  laugh 
and  an  innocent  attempt  at  gallantry  which 
the  very  directness  of  his  simple  nature 
made  atrociously  obvious,  —  "I  mean  what 
you've  made  lots  of  young  fellows  feel. 
There  used  to  be  a  picture  of  Colonel  Brigg 
on  the  mantelpiece,  in  full  uniform,  and 
signed  by  himself  '  for  Kitty  ; '  and  Lord  ! 
how  jealous  I  was  of  it,  for  Kitty  never 
took  presents  from  gentlemen,  and  nobody 


THREE  PARTNERS.  165 

even  was  allowed  in  here,  though  she  helped 
her  father  all  over  the  hotel.  She  was  aw- 
fully strict  in  those  days,"  he  interpolated, 
with  a  thoughtful  look  and  a  ^  half -sigh; 
"  but  then  she  was  n't  married.  I  proposed 
to  her  hi  this  very  room  !  Lord  !  I  remem- 
ber how  frightened  I  was."  He  stopped 
for  an  instant,  and  then  said  with  a  certain 
timidity,  "  Do  you  mind  my  telling  you 
something  about  it?  " 

Mrs.  Horncastle  was  hardly  prepared  to 
hear  these  ingenuous  domestic  details,  but 
she  smiled  vaguely,  although  she  could  not 
suppress  a  somewhat  impatient  movement 
with  her  hands.  Even  Barker  noticed  it, 
but  to  her  surprise  moved  a  little  nearer  to 
her,  and  in  a  half-entreating  way  said,  "  I 
hope  I  don't  bore  you,  but  it 's  something 
confidential.  Do  you  know  that  she  first 
refused  me  ?  " 

Mrs.  Horncastle  smiled,  but  could  not  re- 
sist a  slight  toss  of  her  head.  "  I  believe 
they  all  do  when  they  are  sure  of  a  man." 

"  No !  "  said  Barker  eagerly,  "  you  don't 
understand.  I  proposed  to  her  because  I 
thought  I  was  rich.  In  a  foolish  moment 
I  thought  I  had  discovered  that  some  old 


166  THESE  PARTNERS. 

stocks  I  had  had  acquired  a  fabulous  value. 
She  believed  it,  too,  but  because  she  thought 
I  was  now  a  rich  man  and  she  only  a  poor 
girl  —  a  mere  servant  to  her  father's  guests 
—  she  refused  me.  Refused  me  because 
she  thought  I  might  regret  it  in  the  future, 
because  she  would  not  have  it  said  that  she 
had  taken  advantage  of  my  proposal  only 
when  I  was  rich  enough  to  make  it." 

"  Well  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Horncastle  incredu- 
lously, gazing  straight  before  her ;  "  and 
then?" 

"  In  about  an  hour  I  discovered  my  error, 
that  my  stocks  were  worthless,  that  I  was 
still  a  poor  man.  I  thought  it  only  honest 
to  return  to  her  and  tell  her,  even  though  I 
had  no  hope.  And  then  she  pitied  me,  and 
cried,  and  accepted  me.  I  tell  it  to  you  as 
her  friend."  He  drew  a  little  nearer  and 
quite  fraternally  laid  his  hand  upon  her 
own.  "  I  know  you  won't  betray  me, 
though  you  may  think  it  wrong  for  me  to 
have  told  it ;  but  I  wanted  you  to  know  how 
good  she  was  and  true." 

For  a  moment  Mrs.  Horncastle  was 
amazed  and  discomfited,  although  she  saw, 
with  the  inscrutable  instinct  of  her  sex,  no 


THESE  PARTNERS.  167 

inconsistency  between  the  Kitty  of  those 
days  and  the  Kitty  now  shamefully  hiding 
from  her  husband  in  the  same  hotel.  No 
doubt  Kitty  had  some  good  reason  for  her 
chivalrous  act.  But  she  could  see  the  un- 
mistakable effect  of  that  act  upon  the  more 
logically  reasoning  husband,  and  that  it 
might  lead  him  to  be  more  merciful  to  the 
later  wrong.  And  there  was  a  keener  irony 
that  his  first  movement  of  unconscious  kind- 
liness towards  her  was  the  outcome  of  his 
affection  for  his  undeserving  wife. 

"  You  said  just  now  she  was  more  prac- 
tical than  you,"  she  said  dryly.  "  Apart 
from  this  evidence  of  it,  what  other  reasons 
have  you  for  thinking  so  ?  Do  you  refer  to 
her  independence  or  her  dealings  in  the 
stock  market  ?  "  she  added,  with  a  laugh. 

"  No,"  said  Barker  seriously,  "  for  I  do 
not  think  her  quite  practical  there ;  indeed, 
I'm  afraid  she  is  about  as  bad  as  I  am. 
But  I  'm  glad  you  have  spoken,  for  I  can 
now  talk  confidentially  with  you,  and  as  you 
and  she  are  both  in  the  same  ventures,  per- 
haps she  will  feel  less  compunction  in  hear- 
ing from  you  —  as  your  own  opinion  —  what 
I  have  to  tell  you  than  if  I  spoke  to  her 


168  THREE  PARTNERS. 

myself.  I  am  afraid  she  trusts  implicitly  to 
Van  Loo's  judgment  as  her  broker.  I  be- 
lieve he  is  strictly  honorable,  but  the  general 
opinion  of  his  business  insight  is  not  high. 
They  —  perhaps  I  ought  to  say  he  —  have 
been  at  least  so  unlucky  that  they  might 
have  learned  prudence.  The  loss  of  twenty 
thousand  dollars  in  three  months  "  — 

"  Twenty  thousand !  "  echoed  Mrs.  Horn- 
castle. 

"  Yes.  Why,  you  knew  that ;  it  was  in 
the  mine  you  and  she  visited ;  or,  perhaps," 
he  added  hastily,  as  he  flushed  at  his  indis- 
cretion, "  she  did  n't  tell  you  that." 

But  Mrs.  Horncastle  as  hastily  said, 
"  Yes  —  yes  —  of  course,  only  I  had  for- 
gotten the  amount ;  "  and  he  continued :  — 

"  That  loss  would  have  frightened  any 
man  ;  but  you  women  are  more  daring. 
Only  Van  Loo  ought  to  have  withdrawn. 
Don't  you  think  so  ?  Of  course  I  could  n't 
say  anything  to  him  without  seeming  to  con- 
demn my  own  wife  ;  I  could  n't  say  anything 
to  her  because  it 's  her  own  money." 

"I  didn't  know  that  Mrs.  Barker  had 
any  money  of  her  own,"  said  Mrs.  Horn- 
castle. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  169 

"  Well,  I  gave  it  to  her,"  said  Barker, 
with  sublime  simplicity,  "and  that  would 
make  it  all  the  worse  for  me  to  speak  about 
it." 

Mrs.  Horncastle  was  silent.  A  new 
theory  flashed  upon  her  which  seemed  to  re- 
concile all  the  previous  inconsistencies  of  the 
situation.  Van  Loo,  under  the  guise  of  a 
lover,  was  really  possessing  himself  of  Mrs. 
Barker's  money.  This  accounted  for  the 
risks  he  was  running  in  this  escapade,  which 
were  so  incongruous  to  the  rascal's  nature. 
He  was  calculating  that  the  scandal  of  an 
intrigue  would  relieve  him  of  the  perils  of 
criminal  defalcation.  It  was  compatible  with 
Kitty's  innocence,  though  it  did  not  relieve 
her  vanity  of  the  part  it  played  in  this  de- 
spicable comedy  of  passion.  All  that  Mrs. 
Horncastle  thought  of  now  was  the  effect  of 
its  eventful  revelation  upon  the  man  before 
her.  Of  course,  he  would  overlook  his  wife's 
trustfulness  and  business  ignorance  —  it 
would  seem  so  like  his  own  unselfish  faith! 
That  was  the  fault  of  all  unselfish  goodness  ; 
it  even  took  the  color  of  adjacent  evil,  with- 
out altering  the  nature  of  either.  Mrs. 
Horncastle  set  her  teeth  tightly  together,  but 


170  THREE  PARTNERS. 

her  beautiful  mouth  smiled  upon  Barker, 
though  her  eyes  were  bent  upon  the  tabje- 
cloth  before  her. 

"  I  shall  do  all  I  can  to  impress  your  views 
upon  her,"  she  said  at  last,  "  though  I  fear 
they  will  have  little  weight  if  given  as  my 
own.  And  you  overrate  my  general  influ- 
ence with  her." 

Her  handsome  head  drooped  in  such  a 
thoughtful  humility  that  Barker  instinctively 
drew  nearer  to  her.  Besides,  she  had  not 
lifted  her  dark  lashes  for  some  moments, 
and  he  had  the  still  youthful  habit  of  look- 
ing frankly  into  the  eyes  of  those  he  ad- 
dressed. 

"  No,"  he  said  eagerly  ;  "  how  could  I  ? 
She  could  not  help  but  love  you  and  do  as 
you  would  wish.  I  can't  tell  you  how  glad 
and  relieved  I  am  to  find  that  you  and  she 
have  become  such  friends.  You  know  I 
always  thought  you  beautiful,  I  always 
thought  you  so  clever  —  I  was  even  a  little 
frightened  of  you;  but  I  never  until  now 
knew  you  were  so  good.  No,  stop !  Yes,  I 
did  know  it.  Do  you  remember  once  in 
San  Francisco,  when  I  found  you  with 
Sta  in  your  lap  in  the  drawing-room  ?  I 


THREE  PARTNERS.  171 

knew  it  then.  You  tried  to  make  me  think 
it  was  a  whim  —  the  fancy  of  a  bored  and 
worried  woman.  But  I  knew  better.  And 
I  knew  what  you  were  thinking  then.  Shall 
I  tell  you?" 

As  her  eyes  were  still  cast  down,  although 
her  mouth  was  still  smiling,  in  his  endeavors 
to  look  into  them  his  face  was  quite  near 
hers.  He  fancied  that  it  bore  the  look  she 
had  worn  once  before. 

"  You  were  thinking,"  he  said  in  a  voice 
which  had  grown  suddenly  quite  hesitating 
and  tremulous,  —  he  did  not  know  why,  — 
"  that  the  poor  little  baby  was  quite  friend- 
less and  alone.  You  were  pitying  it  —  you 
know  you  were  —  because  there  was  no  one 
to  give  it  the  loving  care  that  was  its  due, 
and  because  it  was  intrusted  to  that  hired 
nurse  hi  that  great  hotel.  You  were  think- 
ing how  you  would  love  it  if  it  were  yours, 
and  how  cruel  it  was  that  Love  was  sent 
without  an  object  to  waste  itself  upon.  You 
were  :  I  saw  H  in  your  face." 

She  suddenly  lifted  her  eyes  and  looked 
full  into  his  with  a  look  that  held  and  pos- 
sessed him.  For  a  moment  his  whole  soul 
seemed  to  tremble  on  the  verge  of  their  lus- 


172  THREE  PARTNERS. 

irons  depths,  and  he  drew  back  dizzy  and 
frightened.  What  he  saw  there  he  never 
clearly  knew  ;  but,  whatever  it  was,  it  seemed 
to  suddenly  change  his  relations  to  her,  to 
the  room,  to  his  wife,  to  the  world  without. 
It  was  a  glimpse  of  a  world  of  which  he 
knew  nothing.  He  had  looked  frankly  and 
admiringly  into  the  eyes  of  other  pretty  wo- 
men ;  he  had  even  gazed  into  her  own  before, 
but  never  with  this  feeling.  A  sudden  sense 
that  what  he  had  seen  there  he  had  himself 
evoked,  that  it  was  an  answer  to  some  ques- 
tion he  had  scarcely  yet  formulated,  and  that 
they  were  both  now  linked  by  an  understand- 
ing and  consciousness  that  was  irretrievable, 
came  over  him.  He  rose  awkwardly  and 
went  to  the  window.  She  rose  also,  but 
more  leisurely  and  easily,  moved  one  of  the 
books  on  the  table,  smoothed  out  her  skirts, 
and  changed  her  seat  to  a  little  sofa.  It  is 
the  woman  who  always  comes  out  of  these 
crucial  moments  unruffled. 

"  I  suppose  you  will  be  glad  to  see  your 
friend  Mr.  Demorest  when  you  go  back," 
she  said  pleasantly  ;  "  for  of  course  he  will 
be  at  Hymettus  awaiting  you." 

He  turned  eagerly,  as  he  always  did  at 


THREE  PARTNERS.  173 

the  name.  But  even  then  he  felt  that  De- 
inorest  was  no  longer  of  such  importance  to 
him.  He  felt,  too,  that  he  was  not  yet  quite 
sure  of  his  voice  or  even  what  to  say.  As 
he  hesitated  she  went  on  half  playfully :  "  It 
seems  hard  that  you  had  to  come  all  the 
way  here  on  such  a  bootless  errand.  You 
have  n't  even  seen  your  wife  yet." 

The  mention  of  his  wife  recalled  him  to 
himself,  oddly  enough,  when  Demorest's  name 
had  failed.  But  very  differently.  Out  of 
his  whirling  consciousness  came  the  instinc- 
tive feeling  that  he  could  not  see  her  now. 
He  turned,  crossed  the  room,  sat  down  on 
the  sofa  beside  Mrs.  Horncastle,  and  with- 
out, however,  looking  at  her,  said,  with  his 
eyes  on  the  floor,  "  No ;  and  I  've  been 
thinking  that  it 's  hardly  worth  while  to  dis- 
turb her  so  early  to-morrow  as  I  should  have 
to  go.  So  I  think  it 's  a  good  deal  better  to 
let  her  have  a  good  night's  rest,  remain  here 
quietly  with  you  to-morrow  until  the  stage 
leaves,  and  that  both  of  you  come  over  to- 
gether. My  horse  is  still  saddled,  and  I 
will  be  back  at  Hymettus  before  Demorest 
has  gone  to  bed." 

He  was  obliged  to  look  up  at  her  as  he 


174  THREE  PARTNERS. 

rose.  Mrs.  Horncastle  was  sitting  erect, 
beautiful  and  dazzling  as  even  he  had  never 
seen  her  before.  For  his  resolution  had 
suddenly  lifted  a  great  weight  from  her 
shoulders,  —  the  dangerous  meeting  of  hus- 
band and  wife  the  next  morning,  and  its 
results,  whatever  they  might  be,  had  been 
quietly  averted.  She  felt,  too,  a  half-fright- 
ened joy  even  in  the  constrained  manner  in 
which  he  had  imparted  his  determination. 
That  frankness  which  even  she  had  some- 
times found  so  crushing  was  gone. 

"  I  really  think  you  are  quite  right,"  she 
said,  rising  also,  "  and,  besides,  you  see,  it 
will  give  me  a  chance  to  talk  to  her  as  you 
wished." 

"  To  talk  to  her  as  I  wished  ?  "  echoed 
Barker  abstractedly. 

"  Yes,  about  Van  Loo,  you  know,"  said 
Mrs.  Horncastle,  smiling. 

"  Oh,  certainly  —  about  Van  Loo,  of 
course,"  he  returned  hurriedly. 

"  And  then,"  said  Mrs.  Horncastle  bright- 
ly, "  I  '11  tell  her.  Stay !  "  she  interrupted 
herself  hurriedly.  "  Why  need  I  say  any- 
thing about  your  having  been  here  at  all  ? 
It  might  only  annoy  her,  as  you  yourself  sug- 


THESE  PARTNERS.  175 

gest."  She  stopped  breathlessly  with  parted 
Hps. 

"Why,  indeed?"  said  Barker  vaguely. 
Yet  all  this  was  so  unlike  his  usual  truthful- 
ness that  he  slightly  hesitated. 

"  Besides,"  continued  Mrs.  Horncastle, 
noticing  it,  "  you  know  you  can  always  tell 
her  later,  if  necessary."  And  she  added  with 
a  charming  mischievousness,  "  As  she  did  n't 
tell  you  she  was  coming,  I  really  don't  see 
why  you  are  bound  to  tell  her  that  you  were 
here." 

The  sophistry  pleased  Barker,  even  though 
it  put  him  into  a  certain  retaliating  attitude 
towards  his  wife  which  he  was  not  aware  of 
feeling.  But,  as  Mrs.  Horncastle  put  it,  it 
was  only  a  playful  attitude. 

"  Certainly,"  he  said.  "  Don't  say  any- 
thing about  it." 

He  moved  to  the  door  with  his  soft,  broad- 
brimmed  hat  swinging  between  his  fingers. 
She  noticed  for  the  first  tune  that  he  looked 
taller  in  his  long  black  serape  and  riding- 
boots,  and,  oddly  enough,  much  more  like 
the  hero  of  an  amorous  tryst  than  Van 
Loo.  "  I  know,"  she  said  brightly,  "  you 
are  eager  to  get  back  to  your  old  friend,  and 


176  TIIREE  PARTNERS. 

it  would  be  selfish  for  me  to  try  to  keep  you 
longer.  You  have  had  a  stupid  evening,  but 
you  have  made  it  pleasant  to  me  by  telling 
me  what  you  thought  of  me.  And  before 
you  go  I  want  you  to  believe  that  I  shall 
try  to  keep  that  good  opinion."  She  spoke 
frankly  in  contrast  to  the  slight  worldly  con- 
straint of  Barker's  manner  ;  it  seemed  as 
if  they  had  changed  characters.  And  then 
she  extended  her  hand. 

With  a  low  bow,  and  without  looking  up, 
he  took  it.  Again  their  pulses  seemed  to 
leap  together  with  one  accord  and  the  same 
mysterious  understanding.  He  could  not 
tell  if  he  had  unconsciously  pressed  her  hand 
or  if  she  had  returned  the  pressure.  But 
when  their  hands  unclasped  it  seemed  as  if 
it  were  the  division  of  one  flesh  and  spirit. 

She  remained  standing  by  the  open  door 
until  his  footsteps  passed  down  the  staircase. 
Then  she  suddenly  closed  and  locked  the 
door  with  an  instinct  that  Mrs.  Barker 
might  at  once  return  now  that  he  was  gone, 
and  she  wished  to  be  a  moment  alone  to 
recover  herself.  But  she  presently  opened 
it  again  and  listened.  There  was  a  noise  in 
the  courtyard,  but  it  sounded  like  the  rattle 


THREE  PAETNEES.  177 

of  wheels  more  than  the  clatter  of  a  horse- 
man. Then  she  was  overcome  —  a  sudden 
sense  of  pity  for  the  unfortunate  woman  still 
hiding  from  her  husband  —  and  felt  a  mo- 
mentary chivalrous  exaltation  of  spirit.  Cer- 
tainly she  had  done  "  good  "  to  that  wretched 
"  Kitty  ;  "  perhaps  she  had  earned  the  epi- 
thet that  Barker  had  applied  to  her.  Per- 
haps that  was  the  meaning  of  all  this  hap- 
piness to  her,  and  the  result  was  to  be  only 
the  happiness  and  reconciliation  of  the  wife 
and  husband.  This  was  to  be  her  reward. 
I  grieve  to  say  that  the  tears  had  come  into 
her  beautiful  eyes  at  this  satisfactory  conclu- 
sion, but  she  dashed  them  away  and  ran  out 
into  the  hall.  It  was  quite  dark,  but  there  was 
a  faint  glimmer  on  the  opposite  wall  as  if  the 
door  of  Mrs.  Barker's  bedroom  were  ajar  to 
an  eager  listener.  She  flew  towards  the 
glimmer,  and  pushed  the  door  open  :  the 
room  was  empty.  Empty  of  Mrs.  Barker, 
empty  of  her  dressing-box,  her  reticule  and 
shawl.  She  was  gone. 

Still,  Mrs.  Horncastle  lingered ;  the  wo- 
man might  have  got  frightened  and  retreated 
to  some  further  room  at  the  opening  of  the 
door  and  the  coming  out  of  her  husband. 


178  THESE  PARTNERS. 

She  walked  along  the  passage,  calling  her 
name  softly.  She  even  penetrated  the  dreary, 
half-lit  public  parlor,  expecting  to  find  her 
crouching  there.  Then  a  sudden  wild  idea 
took  possession  of  her :  the  miserable  wife 
had  repented  of  her  act  and  of  her  conceal- 
ment, and  had  crept  downstairs  to  await  her 
husband  in  the  office.  She  had  told  him 
some  new  lie,  had  begged  him  to  take  her 
with  him,  and  Barker,  of  course,  had  as- 
sented. Yes,  she  now  knew  why  she  had 
heard  the  rattling  wheels  instead  of  the 
clattering  hoofs  she  had  listened  for.  They 
had  gone  together,  as  he  first  proposed,  in 
the  buggy. 

She  ran  swiftly  down  the  stairs  and  en- 
tered the  office.  The  overworked  clerk  was 
busy  and  querulously  curt.  These  women 
were  always  asking  such  idiotic  questions. 
Yes,  Mr.  Barker  had  just  gone. 

"  With  Mrs.  Barker  in  the  buggy  ? " 
asked  Mrs.  Horncastle. 

"  No,  as  he  came  —  on  horseback.  Mrs. 
Barker  left  half  an  hour  ago." 

"  Alone  ?  " 

This  was  apparently  too  much  for  the 
long-suffering  clerk.  He  lifted  his  eyes  to 


THREE  PARTNERS.  179 

the  ceiling,  and  then,  with  painful  precision, 
and  accenting  every  word  with  his  pencil  on 
the  desk  before  him,  said  deliberately,  "  Mrs. 
George  Barker  —  left  —  here  —  with  her  — 
escort  —  the  —  man  she  —  was  —  always  — 
asking  —  for  —  in  —  the  —  buggy  —  at  ex. 
actly  —  9.35."  And  he  plunged  into  his 
work  again. 

Mrs.  Horncastle  turned,  ran  up  the 
staircase,  reentered  the  sitting-room,  and 
slamming  the  door  behind  her,  halted  in  the 
centre  of  the  room,  panting,  erect,  beauti- 
ful, and  menacing.  And  she  was  alone  in 
this  empty  room  —  this  deserted  hotel. 
From  this  very  room  her  husband  had  left 
her  with  a  brutality  on  his  lips.  From  this 
room  the  fool  and  liar  she  had  tried  to  warn 
had  gone  to  her  ruin  with  a  swindling  hypo- 
crite. And  from  this  room  the  only  man  in 
the  world  she  ever  cared  for  had  gone  forth 
bewildered,  wronged,  and  abused,  and  she 
knew  now  she  could  have  kept  and  com- 
forted him. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

WHEN  Philip  Demorest  left  the  stage- 
coach at  the  cross-roads  he  turned  into  the 
only  wayside  house,  the  blacksmith's  shop, 
and,  declaring  his  intention  of  walking  over 
to  Hymettus,  asked  permission  to  leave  his 
hand-bag  and  wraps  until  they  could  be  sent 
after  him.  The  blacksmith  was  surprised 
that  this  "  likely  mannered,"  distinguished- 
looking  "  city  man  "  should  walk  eight  miles 
when  he  could  ride,  and  tried  to  dissuade 
him,  offering  his  own  buggy.  But  he  was 
still  more  surprised  when  Demorest,  laying 
aside  his  duster,  took  off  his  coat,  and,  sling- 
ing it  on  his  arm,  prepared  to  set  forth  with 
the  good-humored  assurance  that  he  would 
do  the  distance  in  a  couple  of  hours  and  get 
in  in  time  for  supper.  "  I  would  n't  be  too 
sure  of  that,"  said  the  blacksmith  grimly, 
"  or  even  of  getting  a  room.  They  're  a 
stuck-up  lot  over  there,  and  they  ain't  goin' 
to  hump  themselves  over  a  chap  who  comes 


THREE  PARTNERS.  181 

traipsin'  along  the  road  like  any  tramp,  with 
nary  baggage."  But  Demorest  laughingly 
accepted  the  risk,  and  taking  his  stout  stick 
hi  one  hand,  pressed  a  gold  coin  into  the 
blacksmith's  palm,  which  was,  however,  de- 
clined with  such  reddening  promptness  that 
Demorest  as  promptly  reddened  and  apolo- 
gized. The  habits  of  European  travel  had 
been  still  strong  on  him,  and  he  felt  a  slight 
patriotic  thrill  as  he  said,  with  a  grave 
smile,  "  Thank  you,  then ;  and  thank  you 
still  more  for  reminding  me  that  I  am 
among  my  own  '  people,'  '  and  stepped 
lightly  out  into  the  road. 

The  air  was  still  deliciously  cool,  but 
warmer  currents  from  the  heated  pines  be- 
gan to  alternate  with  the  wind  from  the 
summit.  He  found  himself  sometimes  walk- 
ing through  a  stratum  of  hot  air  which 
seemed  to  exhale  from  the  wood  itself,  while 
his  head  and  breast  were  swept  by  the  moun- 
tain breeze.  He  felt  the  old  intoxication 
of  the  balmy-scented  air  again,  and  the  five 
years  of  care  and  hopelessness  laid  upon  his 
shoulders  since  he  had  last  breathed  its  fra- 
grance slipped  from  them  like  a  burden. 
There  had  been  but  little  change  here ;  per- 


182  THREE  PARTNERS. 

haps  the  road  was  wider  and  the  dust  lay 
thicker,  but  the  great  pines  still  mounted  in 
serried  ranks  on  the  slopes  as  before,  with 
no  gaps  in  their  unending  files.  Here  was 
the  spot  where  the  stagecoach  had  passed 
them  that  eventful  morning  when  they  were 
coming  out  of  their  camp-life  into  the  world 
of  civilization  ;  a  little  further  back,  the  spot 
where  Jack  Hamlin  had  forced  upon  him 
that  grim  memento  of  the  attempted  robbery 
of  their  cabin,  which  he  had  kept  ever  since. 
He  half  smiled  again  at  the  superstitious  in- 
terest that  had  made  him  keep  it,  with  the 
intention  of  some  day  returning  to  bury  it, 
with  all  recollections  of  the  deed,  under  the 
site  of  the  old  cabin.  As  he  went  on  in  the 
vivifying  influence  of  the  air  and  scene,  new 
life  seemed  to  course  through  his  veins  ;  his 
step  seemed  to  grow  as  elastic  as  in  the  old 
days  of  their  bitter  but  hopeful  struggle  for 
fortune,  when  he  had  gayly  returned  from 
his  weekly  tramp  to  Boomville  laden  with 
the  scant  provision  procured  by  their  scant 
earnings  and  dying  credit.  Those  were 
the  days  when  her  living  image  still  in- 
spired his  heart  with  faith  and  hope  ;  when 
everything  was  yet  possible  to  youth  and 


THREE  PARTNERS.  183 

love,  and  before  the  irony  of  fate  had  given 
him  fortune  with  one  hand  only  to  withdraw 
Jier  with  the  other.  It  was  strange  and 
cruel  that  coming  back  from  his  quest  of 
rest  and  forgetfulness  he  should  find  only 
these  youthful  and  sanguine  dreams  revive 
with  his  reviving  vigor.  He  walked  on 
more  hurriedly  as  if  to  escape  them,  and  was 
glad  to  be  diverted  by  one  or  two  carryalls 
and  char-a-bancs  filled  with  gayly  dressed 
pleasure  parties  —  evidently  visitors  to  Hy- 
mettus  —  which  passed  him  on  the  road. 
Here  were  the  first  signs  of  change.  He 
recalled  the  train  of  pack-mules  of  the  old 
days,  the  file  of  pole-and-basket  carrying 
Chinese,  the  squaw  with  the  papoose  strapped 
to  her  shoulder,  or  the  wandering  and  foot- 
sore prospector,  who  were  the  only  wayfar- 
ers he  used  to  meet.  He  contrasted  their 
halts  and  friendly  greetings  with  the  inso- 
lent curiosity  or  undisguised  contempt  of  the 
carriage  folk,  and  smiled  as  he  thought  of 
the  warning  of  the  blacksmith.  But  this 
did  not  long  divert  him ;  he  found  himself 
again  returning  to  his  previous  thought. 
Indeed,  the  face  of  a  young  girl  in  one  of 
the  carriages  had  quite  startled  him  with  its 


184  THREE  PARTNERS. 

resemblance  to  an  old  memory  of  his  lost 
love  as  he  saw  her,  —  her  frail,  pale  ele- 
gance encompassed  in  laces  as  she  leaned 
back  in  her  drive  through  Fifth  Avenue, 
with  eyes  that  lit  up  and  became  transfig- 
ured only  as  he  passed.  He  tried  to  think 
of  his  useless  quest  in  search  of  her  last 
resting-place  abroad  ;  how  he  had  been  baf- 
fled by  the  opposition  of  her  surviving  re- 
lations, already  incensed  by  the  thought  that 
her  decline  had  been  the  effect  of  her  hope- 
less passion.  He  tried  to  recall  the  few 
frigid  lines  that  reconveyed  to  him  the  last 
letter  he  had  sent  her,  with  the  announce- 
ment of  her  death  and  the  hope  that  "  his 
persecutions "  would  now  cease.  A  wild 
idea  had  sometimes  come  to  him  out  of  the 
very  insufficiency  of  his  knowledge  of  this 
climax,  but  he  had  always  put  it  aside  as  a 
precursor  of  that  madness  which  might  end 
his  ceaseless  thought.  And  now  it  was  re- 
turning to  him,  here,  thousands  of  miles 
away  from  where  she  was  peacefully  sleep- 
ing, and  even  filling  him  with  the  vigor  of 
youthful  hope. 

The   brief  mountain  twilight  was  giving 
way  now  to  the  radiance  of  the  rising  moon. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  185 

He  endeavored  to  fix  his  thoughts  upon  his 
partners  who  were  to  meet  him  at  Hymettus 
after  these  long  years  of  separation. 

Hymettus  !  He  recalled  now  the  odd 
coincidence  that  he  had  mischievously  used 
as  a  gag  to  his  questioning  fellow  traveler  : 
but  now  he  had  really  come  from  a  villa 
near  Athens  to  find  his  old  house  thus  classi- 
cally rechristened  after  it,  and  thought  of  it 
with  a  gravity  he  had  not  felt  before.  He 
wondered  who  had  named  it.  There  was  no 
suggestion  of  the  soft,  sensuous  elegance  of 
the  land  he  had  left  in  those  great  heroics 
of  nature  before  him.  Those  enormous 
trees  were  no  woods  for  fauns  or  dryads ; 
they  had  their  own  godlike  majesty  of  bulk 
and  height,  and  as  he  at  last  climbed  the 
summit  and  saw  the  dark-helmeted  head  of 
Black  Spur  before  him,  and  beyond  it  the 
pallid,  spiritual  cloud  of  the  Sierras,  he  did 
not  think  of  Olympus.  Yet  for  a  moment 
he  was  startled,  as  he  turned  to  the  right, 
by  the  Doric-columned  facade  of  a  temple 
painted  by  the  moonbeams  and  framed  in 
an  opening  of  the  dark  woods  before  him. 
It  was  not  until  he  had  reached  it  that  he 
saw  that  it  was  the  new  wooden  post-office 
of  Heavy  Tree  Hill. 


186  THREE  PARTNERS. 

And  now  the  buildings  of  the  new  set- 
tlement began  to  faintly  appear.  But  the 
obscurity  of  the  shadow  and  the  equally  dis- 
turbing unreality  of  the  moonlight  confused 
him  in  his  attempts  to  recognize  the  old 
landmarks.  A  broad  and  well-kept  winding 
road  had  taken  the  place  of  the  old  steep, 
but  direct  trail  to  his  cabin.  He  had 
walked  for  some  moments  in  uncertainty, 
when  a  sudden  sweep  of  the  road  brought 
the  full  crest  of  the  hill  above  and  before 
him,  crowned  with  a  tiara  of  lights,  over- 
topping a  long  base  of  flashing  windows. 
That  was  all  that  was  left  of  Heavy  Tree 
Hill.  The  old  foreground  of  buckeye  and 
odorous  ceanothus  was  gone.  Even  the  great 
grove  of  pines  behind  it  had  vanished. 

There  was  already  a  stir  of  life  in  the 
road,  and  he  could  see  figures  moving  slowly 
along  a  kind  of  sterile,  formal  terrace  spread 
with  a  few  dreary  marble  vases  and  plaster 
statues  which  had  replaced  the  natural  slope 
and  the  great  quartz  buttresses  of  outcrop 
that  supported  it.  Presently  he  entered  a 
gate,  and  soon  found  himself  in  the  carriage 
drive  leading  to  the  hotel  veranda.  A  num- 
ber of  fair  promenaders  were  facing  the 


THREE  PARTNERS. 


187 


keen  mountain  night  wind  in  wraps  and 
furs.  Demorest  had  replaced  his  coat,  but 
his  boots  were  red  with  dust,  and  as  he 
ascended  the  steps  he  could  see  that  he  was 
eyed  with  some  superciliousness  by  the 
guests  and  with  considerable  suspicion  by 
the  servants.  One  of  the  latter  was  ap- 
proaching him  with  an  insolent  smile  when  a 
figure  darted  from  the  vestibule,  and,  brush- 
ing the  waiter  aside,  seized  Demorest's  two 
hands  in  his  and  held  him  at  arm's  length. 

"  Demorest,  old  man !  " 

"  Stacy,  old  chap !  " 

"  But  where 's  your  team  ?  I  've  had  all 
the  spare  hostlers  and  hall-boys  listening  for 
you  at  the  gate.  And  where 's  Barker  ? 
When  he  found  you  'd  given  the  dead-cut  to 
the  railroad  —  his  railroad,  you  know  —  he 
loped  over  to  Boomville  after  you." 

Demorest  briefly  explained  that  he  had 
walked  by  the  old  road  and  probably  missed 
him.  But  by  this  time  the  waiters,  crushed 
by  the  spectacle  of  this  travel- worn  stranger's 
affectionate  reception  by  the  great  financial 
magnate,  were  wildly  applying  their  brushes 
and  handkerchiefs  to  his  trousers  and  boots 
until  Stacy  again  swept  them  away. 


188  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"Get  off,  all  of  you!  Now,  Phil,  you 
come  with  me.  The  house  is  full,  but  I  've 
made  the  manager  give  you  a  lady's  drawing- 
room  suite.  When  you  telegraphed  you'd 
meet  us  here  there  was  no  chance  to  get 
anything  else.  It 's  really  Mrs.  Van  Loo's 
family  suite ;  but  they  were  sent  for  to  go 
to  Marysville  yesterday,  and  so  we  '11  run 
you  in  for  the  night." 

"  But  "  —  protested  Demorest. 

"  Nonsense  !  "  said  Stacy,  dragging  him 
away.  "  We  '11  pay  for  it ;  and  I  reckon 
the  old  lady  won't  object  to  taking  her  share 
of  the  damage  either,  or  she  is  n't  Van  Loo's 
mother.  Come." 

Demorest  felt  himself  hurried  forward  by 
the  energetic  Stacy,  preceded  by  the  obse- 
quious manager,  through  a  corridor  to  a 
handsomely  furnished  suite,  into  whose  bath- 
room Stacy  incontinently  thrust  him. 

"  There !  Wash  up  ;  and  by  the  time 
you  're  ready  Barker  ought  to  be  back,  and 
we  '11  have  supper.  It 's  waiting  for  us  in 
the  other  room." 

"  But  how  about  Barker,  the  dear  boy  ?  " 
persisted  Demorest,  holding  open  the  door. 
"  Tell  me,  is  he  well  and  happy  ?  " 


THESE  PAETNEES.  189 

"  About  as  well  as  we  all  are,"  said  Stacy 
quickly,  yet  with  a  certain  dry  significance. 
"  Never  mind  now ;  wait  until  you  see  him." 

The  door  closed.  When  Demorest  had 
finished  washing,  and  wiped  away  the  last 
red  stain  of  the  mountain  road,  he  found 
Stac}'  seated  by  the  window  of  the  larger 
sitting-room.  In  the  centre  a  table  was 
spread  for  supper.  A  bright  fire  of  hickory 
logs  burnt  on  a  marble  hearth  between  two 
large  windows  that  gave  upon  the  distant 
outline  of  Black  Spur.  As  Stacy  turned 
towards  him,  by  the  light  of  the  shaded 
lamp  and  flickering  fire,  Demorest  had  a 
good  look  at  the  face  of  his  old  friend  and 
partner.  It  was  as  keen  and  energetic  as 
ever,  with  perhaps  an  even  more  hawk-like 
activity  visible  in  the  eye  and  nostril ;  but  it 
was  more  thoughtful  and  reticent  in  the 
lines  of  the  mouth  under  the  closely  clipped 
beard  and  mustache,  and  when  he  looked 
up,  at  first  there  were  two  deep  lines  or  fur- 
rows across  his  low  broad  forehead.  De- 
morest fancied,  too,  that  there  was  a  little  of 
the  old  fighting  look  in  his  eye,  but  it  soft- 
ened quickly  as  his  friend  approached,  and 
he  burst  out  with  his  curt  but  honest  single- 


190  TUBES  PARTNERS. 

syllabled  laugh.  "  Ha !  You  look  a  little 
less  like  a  roving  Apache  than  you  did  when 
you  came.  I  really  thought  the  waiters 
were  going  to  chuck  you.  And  you  are 
tanned !  Darned  if  you  don't  look  like  the 
profile  stamped  on  a  Continental  penny ! 
But  here  's  luck  and  a  welcome  back,  old 
man!" 

Demorest  passed  his  arm  around  the  neck 
of  his  seated  partner,  and  grasping  his  up- 
raised hand  said,  looking  down  with  a  smile, 
"  And  now  about  Barker." 

"  Oh,  Barker,  d — n  him !  He 's  the 
same  unshakable,  unchangeable,  ungrow-up- 
able  Barker !  With  the  devil's  own  luck, 
too !  Waltzing  into  risks  and  waltzing  out 
of  'em.  With  fads  enough  to  put  him  in 
the  insane  asylum  if  people  did  not  prefer 
to  keep  him  out  of  it  to  help  'em.  Always 
believing  in  everybody,  until  they  actually 
believe  in  themselves,  and  —  shake  him  ! 
And  he 's  got  a  wife  that 's  making  a  fool 
of  herself,  and  I  should  n't  wonder  in  time 
-of  him!" 

Demorest  pressed  his  hand  over  his  part- 
ner's mouth.  "  Come,  Jim !  You  know  you 
never  really  liked  that  marriage,  simply  be- 


THREE  PARTNERS.  191 

cause  you  thought  that  old  man  Carter  made 
a  good  thing  of  it.  And  you  never  seem  to 
have  taken  into  consideration  the  happiness 
Barker  got  out  of  it.  For  he  did  love  the 
girl.  And  he  still  is  happy,  is  he  not  ?  "  he 
added  quickly,  as  Stacy  uttered  a  grunt. 

"  As  happy  as  a  man  can  be  who  has  his 
child  here  with  a  nurse  while  his  wife  is 
gallivanting  in  San  Francisco,  and  throwing 
her  money  —  and  Lord  knows  what  else  — 
away  at  the  bidding  of  a  smooth-tongued, 
shady  operator." 

"  Does  he  complain  of  it  ?  "  asked  Demo- 
rest. 

"  Not  he  ;  the  fool  trusts  her !  "  said 
Stacy  curtly. 

Demorest  laughed.  "  That  is  happiness ! 
Come,  Jim !  don't  let  us  begrudge  him  that. 
But  I  've  heard  that  his  affairs  have  again 
prospered." 

"He  built  this  railroad  and  this  hotel. 
The  bank  owns  both  now.  He  did  n't  care 
to  keep  money  in  them  after  they  were  a 
success ;  said  he  was  n't  an  engineer  nor  a 
hotel-keeper,  and  drew  it  out  to  find  some- 
thing new.  But  here  he  comes,"  he  added, 
as  a  horseman  dashed  into  the  drive  before 


192  THREE  PARTNERS. 

the  hotel.  "  Question  him  yourself.  You 
know  you  and  he  always  get  along  best 
without  me." 

In  another  moment  Barker  had  burst  into 
the  room,  and  in  his  first  tempestuous  greet- 
ing of  Demorest  the  latter  saw  little  change 
in  his  younger  partner  as  he  held  him  at 
arm's  length  to  look  at  him.  "  Why, 
Barker  boy,  you  have  n't  got  a  bit  older 
since  the  day  when  —  you  remember  —  you 
went  over  to  Boomville  to  cash  your  bonds, 
and  then  came  back  and  burst  upon  us  like 
this  to  tell  us  you  were  a  beggar." 

"  Yes,"  laughed  Barker,  "  and  all  the 
while  you  fellows  were  holding  four  aces  up 
your  sleeve  in  the  shape  of  the  big  strike." 

"And  you,  Georgy,  old  boy,"  returned 
Demorest,  swinging  Barker's  two  hands 
backwards  and  forwards,  "  were  holding  a 
royal  flush  up  yours  in  the  shape  of  your 
engagement  to  Kitty." 

The  fresh  color  died  out  of  Barker's 
cheek  even  while  the  frank  laugh  was  still 
on  his  mouth.  He  turned  his  face  for  a 
moment  towards  the  window,  and  a  swift 
and  almost  involuntary  glance  passed  be- 
tween the  others.  But  he  almost  as  quickly 


THESE  PARTNERS.  193 

turned  his  glistening  eyes  back  to  Demorest 
again,  and  said  eagerly,  "  Yes,  dear  Kitty ! 
You  shall  see  her  and  the  baby  to-morrow." 
Then  they  fell  upon  the  supper  with  the 
appetites  of  the  Past,  and  for  some  moments 
they  all  talked  eagerly  and  even  noisily  to- 
gether, all  at  the  same  time,  with  even  the 
spirits  of  the  Past.  They  recalled  every 
detail  of  their  old  life  ;  eagerly  and  impetu- 
ously recounted  the  old  struggles,  hopes,  and 
disappointments,  gave  the  strange  impor- 
tance of  schoolboys  to  unimportant  events, 
and  a  mystic  meaning  to  a  shibboleth  of 
their  own ;  roared  over  old  jokes  with  a 
delight  they  had  never  since  given  to  new  ; 
reawakened  idiotic  nicknames  and  bywords 
with  intense  enjoyment ;  grew  grave,  anxious, 
and  agonized  over  forgotten  names,  trifling 
dates,  useless  distances,  ineffective  records, 
and  feeble  chronicles  of  their  domestic  econ- 
omy. It  was  the  thoughtful  and  melancholy 
Demorest  who  remembered  the  exact  color 
and  price  paid  for  a  certain  shirt  bought 
from  a  Greaser  peddler  amidst  the  envy  of 
his  companions ;  it  was  the  financial  mag- 
nate, Stacy,  who  could  inform  them  what 
were  the  exact  days  they  had  saleratus  bread 


194  THREE  PARTNERS. 

and  when  flapjacks ;  it  was  the  thoughtless 
and  mercurial  Barker  who  recalled  with  un- 
heard-of accuracy,  amidst  the  applause  of 
the  others,  the  full  name  of  the  Indian  squaw 
who  assisted  at  their  washing.  Even  then 
they  were  almost  feverishly  loath  to  leave  the 
subject,  as  if  the  Past,  at  least,  was  secure 
to  them  still,  and  they  were  even  doubtful 
of  their  own  free  and  full  accord  in  the 
Present.  Then  they  slipped  rather  reluc- 
tantly into  their  later  experiences,  but  with 
scarcely  the  same  freedom  or  spontaneity ; 
and  it  was  noticeable  that  these  records 
were  elicited  from  Barker  by  Stacy  or  from 
Stacy  by  Barker  for  the  information  of 
Demorest,  often  with  chaffing  and  only  un- 
der good-humored  protest.  "  Tell  Demorest 
how  you  broke  the  '  Copper  Ring,' "  from 
the  admiring  Barker,  or,  "Tell  Demorest 
how  your  d — d  foolishness  in  buying  up  the 
right  and  plant  of  the  Ditch  Company  got 
you  control  of  the  railroad,"  from  the  mis- 
chievous Stacy,  were  challenges  in  point. 
Presently  they  left  the  table,  and,  to  the 
astonishment  of  the  waiters  who  removed 
the  cloth,  common  brier-wood  pipes,  thought- 
fully provided  by  Barker  in  commemoration 


THREE  PARTNERS.  195 

of  the  Past,  were  lit,  and  they  ranged  them- 
selves in  armchairs  before  the  fire  quite 
unconsciously  in  their  old  attitudes.  The 
two  windows  on  either  side  of  the  hearth 
gave  them  the  same  view  that  the  open  door 
of  the  old  cabin  had  made  familiar  to  them, 
the  league-long  valley  below  the  shadowy 
bulk  of  the  Black  Spur  rising  in  the  dis- 
tance, and,  still  more  remote,  the  pallid 
snow-line  that  soared  even  beyond  its  crest. 

As  in  the  old  time,  they  were  for  many 
moments  silent ;  and  then,  as  in  the  old 
tune,  it  was  the  irrepressible  Barker  who 
broke  the  silence.  "But  Stacy  does  not  tell 
you  anything  about  his  friend,  the  beautiful 
Mrs.  Horncastle.  You  know  he  's  the  guard- 
ian of  one  of  the  finest  women  in  California 
—  a  woman  as  noble  and  generous  as  she  is 
handsome.  And  think  of  it !  He  's  protect- 
ing her  from  her  brute  of  a  husband,  and 
looking  after  her  property.  Is  n't  it  good 
and  chivalrous  of  him  ?  " 

The  irrepressible  laughter  of  the  two  men 
brought  only  wonder  and  reproachful  indig- 
nation into  the  widely  opened  eyes  of  Barker. 
He  was  perfectly  sincere.  He  had  been 
thinking  of  Stacy's  admiration  for  Mrs. 


196  THREE  PARTNERS. 

Horncastle  in  his  ride  from  Boomville,  and, 
strange  to  stay,  yet  characteristic  of  his 
nature,  it  was  equally  the  natural  outcome 
of  his  interview  with  her  and  the  singular 
effect  she  had  upon  him.  That  he  (Barker) 
thoroughly  sympathized  with  her  only  con- 
vinced him  that  Stacy  must  feel  the  same 
for  her,  and  that,  no  doubt,  she  must  re- 
spond to  him  equally.  And  how  noble  it 
was  in  his  old  partner,  with  his  advantages 
of  position  in  the  world  and  his  protecting 
relations  to  her,  not  to  avail  himself  of  this 
influence  upon  her  generous  nature.  If  he 
himself  —  a  married  man  and  the  husband 
of  Kitty — was  so  conscious  of  her  charm, 
how  much  greater  it  must  be  to  the  free 
and  inexperienced  Stacy. 

The  italics  were  in  Barker's  thought ;  for 
in  those  matters  he  felt  that  Stacy  and  even 
Demorest,  occupied  in  other  things,  had  not 
his  knowledge.  There  was  no  idea  or  con- 
sciousness of  heroically  sacrificing  himself  or 
Mrs.  Horncastle  in  this.  I  am  afraid  there 
was  not  even  an  idea  of  a  superior  morality 
in  himself  in  giving  up  the  possibility  of 
loving  her.  Ever  since  Stacy  had  first  seen 
her  he  had  fancied  that  Stacy  liked  her,  — 


THREE  PARTNERS.  197 

indeed,  Kitty  fancied  it,  too,  —  and  it  seemed 
almost  providential  now  that  he  should  know 
how  to  assist  his  old  partner  to  happiness. 
For  it  was  inconceivable  that  Stacy  should 
not  be  able  to  rescue  this  woman  from  her 
shameful  bonds,  or  that  she  should  not  con- 
sent to  it  through  his  (Barker's)  arguments 
and  entreaties.  To  a  "  champion  of  dames  " 
this  seemed  only  right  and  proper.  In  his 
unfailing  optimism  he  translated  Stacy's 
laugh  as  embarrassment  and  Demorest's  as 
only  ignorance  of  the  real  question.  But 
Demorest  had  noticed,  if  he  had  not,  that 
Stacy's  laugh  was  a  little  nervously  pro- 
longed for  a  man  of  his  temperament,  and 
that  he  had  cast  a  very  keen  glance  at 
Barker.  A  messenger  arriving  with  a  tele- 
gram brought  from  Boomville  called  Stacy 
momentarily  away,  and  Barker  was  not  slow 
to  take  advantage  of  his  absence. 

"  I  wish,  Phil,"  he  said,  hitching  his  chair 
closer  to  Demorest,  "  that  you  would  think 
seriously  of  this  matter,  and  try  to  persuade 
Stacy  —  who,  I  believe,  is  more  interested 
in  Mrs.  Horncastle  than  he  cares  to  show  — 
to  put  a  little  of  that  determination  in  love 
that  he  has  shown  in  business.  She  's  an 


198  THREE  PARTNERS. 

awfully  fine  woman,  and  in  every  way  suited 
to  him,  and  he  is  letting  an  absurd  sense  of 
pride  and  honor  keep  him  from  influencing 
her  to  get  rid  of  her  impossible  husband. 
There's  no  reason,"  continued  Barker  in 
a  burst  of  enthusiastic  simplicity,  "that 
because  she  has  found  some  one  she  likes 
better,  and  who  would  treat  her  better,  that 
she  should  continue  to  stick  to  that  beast 
whom  all  California  would  gladly  see  her 
divorced  from.  I  never  could  understand 
that  kind  of  argument,  could  you  ?  " 

Demorest  looked  at  his  companion's  glow- 
ing cheek  and  kindling  eye  with  a  smile. 
"  A  good  deal  depends  upon  the  side  from 
which  you  argue.  But,  frankly,  Barker 
boy,  though  I  think  I  know  you  in  all  your 
phases,  I  am  not  prepared  yet  to  accept  you 
as  a  match-maker  !  However,  I  '11  think  it 
over,  and  find  out  something  more  of  this 
from  your  goddess,  who  seems  to  have  be- 
witched you  both.  But  what  does  Mistress 
Kitty  say  to  your  admiration  ?  " 

Barker's  face  clouded,  but  instantly  bright- 
ened. "  Oh,  they  're  the  best  of  friends  ; 
they  're  quite  like  us,  you  know,  even  to 
larks  they  have  together."  He  stopped  and 


THREE  PARTNERS.  199 

colored  at  his  slip.  But  Demorest,  who  had 
noticed  his  change  of  expression,  was  more 
concerned  at  the  look  of  half  incredulity  and 
half  suspicion  with  which  Stacy,  who  had 
reentered  the  room  in  time  to  hear  Bar- 
ker's speech,  was  regarding  his  unconscious 
younger  partner. 

"  I  did  n't  know  that  Mrs.  Horncastle  and 
Mrs.  Barker  were  such  friends,"  he  said 
dryly  as  he  sat  down  again.  But  his  face 
presently  became  so  abstracted  that  Demo- 
rest  said  gayly :  — 

"  Well,  Jim,  I  'm  glad  I  'm  not  a  Napo- 
leon of  Finance!  I  couldn't  stand  it  to 
have  my  privacy  or  my  relaxation  broken  in 
upon  at  any  moment,  as  yours  was  just  now. 
What  confounded  somersault  in  stocks  has 
put  that  face  on  you  ?  " 

Stacy  looked  up  quickly  with  his  brief 
laugh.  "  I  'm  afraid  you  'd  be  none  the 
wiser  if  I  told  you.  That  was  a  pony  ex- 
press messenger  from  New  York.  You  re- 
member how  Barker,  that  night  of  the  strike, 
when  we  were  sitting  together  here,  or  very 
near  here,  proposed  that  we  ought  to  have  a 
password  or  a  symbol  to  call  us  together  in 
case  of  emergency,  for  each  other's  help? 


200  THREE  PARTNERS. 

Well,  let  us  say  I  have  two  partners,  one  in 
Europe  and  one  in  New  York.  That  was 
my  password." 

"  And,  I  hope,  no  more  serious  than  ours," 
added  Demorest. 

Stacy  laughed  his  short  laugh.  Never- 
theless,  the  conversation  dragged  again.  The 
feverish  gayety  of  the  early  part  of  the  even- 
ing was  gone,  and  they  seemed  to  be  suffer- 
ing from  the  reaction.  They  fell  into  their 
old  attitudes,  looking  from  the  firelight  to 
the  distant  bulk  of  Black  Spur  without  a 
word.  The  occasional  sound  of  the  voices  of 
promenaders  on  the  veranda  at  last  ceased  ; 
there  was  the  noise  of  the  shutting  of  heavy 
doors  below,  and  Barker  rose. 

"  You  '11  excuse  me,  boys ;  but  I  must  go 
and  say  good-night  to  little  Sta,  and  see  that 
he's  all  right.  I  haven't  seen  him  since 
I  got  back.  But "  —  to  Demorest  —  "  you  '11 
see  him  to-morrow,  when  Kitty  comes.  It  is 
as  much  as  my  life  is  worth  to  show  him 
before  she  certifies  him  as  being  presentable." 
lie  paused,  and  then  added :  "  Don't  wait  up, 
you  fellows,  for  me ;  sometimes  the  little  chap 
won't  let  me  go.  It 's  as  if  he  thought,  now 
Kitty 's  away,  I  was  all  he  had.  But  I  '11 


THREE  PARTNERS.  201 

be  up  early  in  the  morning  and  see  you.  1 
dare  say  you  and  Stacy  have  a  heap  to  say  to 
each  other  on  business,  and  you  won't  miss 
me.  So  I  '11  say  good-night."  He  laughed 
lightly,  pressed  the  hands  of  his  partners  in 
his  usual  hearty  fashion,  and  went  out  of  the 
room,  leaving  the  gloom  a  little  deeper  than 
before.  It  was  so  unusual  for  Barker  to  be 
the  first  to  leave  anybody  or  anything  in 
trouble  that  they  both  noticed  it.  "  But  for 
that,"  said  Demorest,  turning  to  Stacy  as  the 
door  closed,  "  I  should  say  the  dear  fellow 
was  absolutely  unchanged.  But  he  seemed 
a  little  anxious  to-night." 

"  I  should  n't  wonder.  He  's  got  two 
women  on  his  mind,  —  as  if  one  was  not 
enough." 

"  I  don't  understand.  You  say  his  wife 
is  foolish,  and  this  other  "  — 

"  Never  mind  that  now,"  interrupted 
Stacy,  getting  up  and  putting  down  his 
pipe.  "  Let 's  talk  a  little  business.  That 
other  stuff  will  keep." 

"  By  all  means,"  said  Demorest,  with  a 
smile,  settling  down  into  his  chair  a  little 
wearily,  however.  "  I  forgot  business.  And 
I  forgot,  my  dear  Jim,  to  congratulate  you. 


202  THREE  PARTNERS. 

I  've  heard  all  about  you,  even  in  New  York. 
You  're  the  man  who,  according  to  every- 
body, now  holds  the  finances  of  the  Pacific 
Slope  in  his  hands.  And,"  he  added,  lean- 
ing affectionately  towards  his  old  partner, 
"  I  don't  know  any  one  better  equipped  in 
honesty,  straightforwardness,  and  courage  for 
such  a  responsibility  than  you." 

"  I  only  wish,"  said  Stacy,  looking  thought- 
fully at  Demorest,  "  that  I  did  n't  hold 
nearly  a  million  of  your  money  included  in 
the  finances  of  the  Pacific  Slope." 

"  Why,"  said  the  smiling  Demorest,  "  as 
long  as  I  am  satisfied  ?  " 

"  Because  /  am  not.  If  you  're  satisfied, 
I'm  a  wretched  idiot  and  not  fit  for  my 
position.  Now,  look  here,  Phil.  When  you 
wrote  me  to  sell  out  your  shares  in  the 
Wheat  Trust  I  was  a  little  staggered.  I 
knew  your  gait,  my  boy,  and  I  knew,  too, 
that,  while  you  did  n't  know  enough  to  trust 
your  own  opinions  or  feeling,  you  knew  too 
much  to  trust  any  one's  opinion  that  was  n't 
first-class.  So  I  reckoned  you  had  the 
straight  tip ;  but  /  did  n't  see  it.  Now,  I 
ought  not  to  have  been  staggered  if  I  was 
fit  for  your  confidence,  or,  if  I  was  staggered, 


THREE  PARTNERS.  203 

I  ought  to  have  had  enough  confidence  in 
myself  not  to  mind  you.  See  ?  " 

"  I  admit  your  logic,  old  man,"  said  De- 
morest,  with  an  amused  face,  "  but  I  don't 
see  your  premises.  When  did  I  tell  you  to 
sellout?" 

"Two  days  ago.  You  wrote  just  after 
you  arrived." 

"  I  have  never  written  to  you  since  I 
arrived.  I  only  telegraphed  to  you  to  know 
where  we  should  meet,  and  received  your 
message  to  come  here." 

"You  never  wrote  me  from  San  Fran- 
cisco ?  " 

"  Never." 

Stacy  looked  concernedly  at  his  friend. 
Was  he  in  his  right  mind  ?  He  had  heard 
of  cases  where  melancholy  brooding  on  a 
fixed  idea  had  affected  the  memory.  He 
took  from  his  pocket  a  letter -case,  and 
selecting  a  letter  handed  it  to  Demorest 
without  speaking. 

Demorest  glanced  at  it,  turned  it  over, 
read  its  contents,  and  in  a  grave  voice  said, 
44  There  is  something  wrong  here.  It  is  like 
my  handwriting,  but  I  never  wrote  the  let- 
ter, nor  has  it  been  in  my  hand  before." 


204  THESE  PARTNERS. 

Stacy  sprang  to  his  side.  "  Then  it 's  a 
forgery !  " 

"  Wait  a  moment."  Demorest,  who,  al- 
though very  grave,  was  the  more  collected 
of  the  two,  went  to  a  writing-desk,  selected  a 
sheet  of  paper,  and  took  up  a  pen.  "  Now," 
he  said,  "  dictate  that  letter  to  me." 

Stacy  began,  Demorest's  pen  rapidly  fol- 
lowing him :  — 

"  DEAR  JIM,  —  On  receipt  of  this  get  rid 
of  my  Wheat  Trust  shares  at  whatever  fig- 
ure you  can.  From  the  way  things  pointed 
in  New  York"  — 

"  Stop !  "  interrupted  Demorest. 

"  Well  ?  "  said  Stacy  impatiently. 

"  Now,  my  dear  Jim,"  said  Demorest 
plaintively,  "  when  did  you  ever  know  me 
to  write  such  a  sentence  as  '  the  way  things 
pointed '  ?  " 

"  Let  me  finish  reading,"  said  Stacy. 
This  literary  sensitiveness  at  such  a  moment 
seemed  little  short  of  puerility  to  the  man  of 
business. 

"  From  the  way  things  pointed  in  New 
York,"  continued  Stacy,  "  and  from  pri- 
vate advices  received,  this  seems  to  be  the 
only  prudent  course  before  the  feathers 


THREE  PARTNERS.  205 

begin  to  fly.  Longing  to  see  you  again  and 
the  dear  old  stamping-ground  at  Heavy 
Tree.  Love  to  Barker.  Has  the  dear  old 
boy  been  at  any  fresh  crank  lately  ? 

"Yours,  PHIL  DEMOREST." 

The  dictation  and  copy  finished  together. 
Demorest  laid  the  freshly  written  sheet  be- 
side the  letter  Stacy  had  produced.  They 
were  very  much  alike  and  yet  quite  distinct 
from  each  other.  Only  the  signature  seemed 
identical. 

"  That 's  the  invariable  mistake  with  the 
forger,"  said  Demorest ;  "  he  always  forgets 
that  signatures  ought  to  be  identical  with 
the  text  rather  than  with  each  other." 

But  Stacy  did  not  seem  to  hear  this  or 
require  further  proof.  His  face  was  quite 
gray  and  his  lips  compressed  until  lost  in 
his  closely  set  beard  as  he  gazed  fixedly  out 
of  the  window.  For  the  first  time,  really 
concerned  and  touched,  Demorest  laid  his 
hand  gently  on  his  shoulder. 

"  Tell  me,  Jim,  how  much  does  this  mean 
to  you  —  apart  from  me  ?  Don't  think  of 
me." 

"  I  don't  know  yet,"  said  Stacy  slowly. 
"  That 's  the  trouble.  And  I  won't  know 


206  THREE  PARTNERS. 

until  I  know  who  's  at  the  bottom  of  it. 
Does  anybody  know  of  your  affairs  with 
me?" 

"  No  one." 

"  No  confidential  friend,  eh  ?  " 

"  None." 

"  No  one  who  has  access  to  your  secrets  ? 
No  —  no  —  woman  ?  Excuse  me,  Phil,"  he 
said,  as  a  peculiar  look  passed  over  Demo- 
rest's  face,  "  but  this  is  business." 

"  No,"  he  returned,  with  that  gentleness 
that  used  to  frighten  them  in  the  old  days, 
"  it 's  ignorance.  You  fellows  always  say 
4  Cherchez  la  femme  '  when  you  can't  say 
anything  else.  Come  now,"  he  went  on 
more  brightly,  "  look  at  the  letter.  Here 's 
a  man,  commercially  educated,  for  he  has 
used  the  usual  business  formulas,  *  on  re- 
ceipt of  this,'  and  '  advices  received,'  which 
I  won't  merely  say  I  don't  use,  but  which 
few  but  commercial  men  use.  Next,  here 's 
a  man  who  uses  slang,  not  only  ineptly, 
but  artificially,  to  give  the  letter  the  easy, 
familiar  turn  it  has  n't  from  beginning  to 
end.  I  need  only  say,  my  dear  Stacy,  that 
I  don't  write  slang  to  you,  but  that  nobody 
who  understands  slang  ever  writes  it  in  that 


THREE  PARTNERS.  207 

way.  And  then  the  knowledge  of  my 
opinion  of  Barker  is  such  as  might  be  gained 
from  the  reading  of  my  letters  by  a  per- 
son who  could  n't  comprehend  my  feelings. 
Now,  let  me  play  inquisitor  for  a  few  mo- 
ments. Has  anybody  access  to  my  letters  to 
you  ?  " 

"  No  one.  I  keep  them  locked  up  in  a 
cabinet.  I  only  make  memorandums  of 
your  instructions,  which  I  give  to  my  clerks, 
but  never  your  letters." 

"  But  your  clerks  sometimes  see  you  make 
memorandums  from  them  ?  " 

"  Yes,  but  none  of  them  have  the  ability 
to  do  this  sort  of  thing,  nor  the  opportunity 
of  profiting  by  it." 

"  Has  any  woman  —  now  this  is  not  retali- 
ation, my  dear  Jim,  for  I  fancy  I  detect  a 
woman's  cleverness  and  a  woman's  stupidity 
in  this  forgery  —  any  access  to  your  secrets 
or  my  letters  ?  A  woman's  villainy  is  always 
effective  for  the  moment,  but  always  defec- 
tive when  probed." 

The  look  of  scorn  which  passed  over 
Stacy's  face  was  quite  as  distinct  as  Demo- 
rest's  previous  protest,  as  he  said  contempt- 
uously, "  I  'm  not  such  a  fool  as  to  mix 


208  THREE  PARTNERS. 

up  petticoats  with  my  business,  whatever  I 
do." 

"  Well,  one  thing  more.  I  have  told  you 
that  in  my  opinion  the  forger  has  a  commer- 
cial education  or  style,  that  he  does  n't  know 
me  nor  Barker,  and  don't  understand  slang. 
Now,  I  have  to  add  what  must  have  occurred 
to  you,  Jim,  that  the  forger  is  either  a 
coward,  or  his  object  is  not  altogether  mer- 
cenary :  for  the  same  ability  displayed  in  this 
letter  would  on  the  signature  alone  —  had  it 
been  on  a  check  or  draft  —  have  drawn 
from  your  bank  twenty  times  the  amount 
concerned.  Now,  what  is  the  actual  loss 
by  this  forgery?" 

"  Very  little  ;  for  you  've  got  a  good 
price  for  your  stocks,  considering  the  depre- 
ciation in  realizing  suddenly  on  so  large  an 
amount.  I  told  my  broker  to  sell  slowly 
and  in  small  quantities  to  avoid  a  panic. 
But  the  real  loss  is  the  control  of  the  stock." 

"  But  the  amount  I  had  was  not  enough 
to  affect  that,"  said  Demorest. 

"  No,  but  I  was  carrying  a  large  amount 
myself,  and  together  we  controlled  the  mar- 
ket, and  now  I  have  unloaded,  too." 

"  You  sold  out !  and  with  your  doubts  ?  " 
said  Deraore^t. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  209 

"  That 's  just  it,"  said  Stacy,  looking 
steadily  at  his  companion's  face,  "  because  I 
had  doubts,  and  it  won't  do  for  me  to  have 
them.  I  ought  either  to  have  disobeyed 
your  letter  and  kept  your  stock  and  my  own, 
or  have  done  just  what  I  did.  I  might 
have  hedged  on  my  own  stock,  but  I  don't 
believe  in  hedging.  There  is  no  middle 
course  to  a  man  in  my  business  if  he  wants 
to  keep  at  the  top.  No  great  success,  no 
great  power,  was  ever  created  by  it." 

Demorest  smiled.  "  Yet  you  accept  the 
alternative  also,  which  is  ruin  ?  " 

"  Precisely,"  said  Stacy.  "  When  you 
returned  the  other  day  you  were  bound  to 
find  me  what  I  was  or  a  beggar.  But  no- 
thing between.  However,"  he  added,  "  this 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  forgery,  or,"  he 
smiled  grimly,  "  everything  to  do  with  it. 
Hush  !  Barker  is  coming." 

There  was  a  quick  step  along  the  corridor 
approaching  the  room.  The  next  moment 
the  door  flew  open  to  the  bounding  step  and 
laughing  face  of  Barker.  Whatever  of 
thoughtfulness  or  despondency  he  had  car- 
ried from  the  room  with  him  was  completely 
gone.  With  his  amazing  buoyancy  and 


210  THREE  PARTNERS. 

power  of  reaction  he  was  there  again  in  his 
usual  frank,  cheerful  simplicity. 

"  I  thought  I  'd  come  in  and  say  good- 
night," he  began,  with  a  laugh.  "  I  got 
Sta  asleep  after  some  high  jinks  we  had 
together,  and  then  I  reckoned  it  was  n't  the 
square  thing  to  leave  just  you  two  together, 
the  first  night  you  came.  And  I  remem- 
bered I  had  some  business  to  talk  over,  too, 
so  I  thought  I  'd  chip  in  again  and  take  a 
hand.  It 's  only  the  shank  of  the  evening 
yet,"  he  continued  gayly,  "  and  we  ought  to 
sit  up  at  least  long  enough  to  see  the  old 
snow-line  vanish,  as  we  did  in  old  times. 
But  I  say,"  he  added  suddenly,  as  he  glanced 
from  the  one  to  the  other,  "  you  've  been 
having  it  pretty  strong  already.  Why,  you 
both  look  as  you  did  that  night  the  back- 
water of  the  South  Fork  came  into  our 
cabin.  What 'sup?" 

"  Nothing,"  said  Demorest  hastily,  as  he 
caught  a  glance  of  Stacy's  impatient  face. 
"  Only  all  business  is  serious,  Barker  boy, 
though  you  don't  seem  to  feel  it  so." 

"  I  reckon  you  're  right  there,"  said  Bar- 
ker, with  a  chuckle.  "  People  always  laugh, 
of  course,  when  I  talk  business,  so  it  might 


THREE  PARTNERS.  211 

make  it  a  little  livelier  for  you  and  more  of 
a  change  if  I  chipped  in  now.  Only  I  don't 
know  which  you  '11  do.  Hand  me  a  pipe. 
Well,"  he  continued,  filling  the  pipe  Demo- 
rest  shoved  towards  him,  "  you  see,  I  was  in 
Sacramento  yesterday,  and  I  went  into  Van 
Loo's  branch  office,  as  I  heard  he  was  there, 
and  I  wanted  to  find  out  something  about 
Kitty's  investments,  which  I  don't  think  he  's 
managing  exactly  right.  He  was  n't  there, 
however,  but  as  I  was  waiting  I  heard  his 
clerks  talk  about  a  drop  in  the  Wheat  Trust, 
and  that  there  was  a  lot  of  it  put  upon  the 
market.  They  seemed  to  think  that  some- 
thing had  happened,  and  it  was  going  down 
still  further.  Now  I  knew  it  was  your  pet 
scheme,  and  that  Phil  had  a  lot  of  shares  in 
it,  too,  so  I  just  slipped  out  and  went  to  a 
broker's  and  told  him  to  buy  all  he  could  of 
it.  And,  by  Jove!  I  was  a  little  taken 
aback  when  I  found  what  I  was  in  for,  for 
everybody  seemed  to  have  unloaded,  and  I 
found  I  had  n't  money  enough  to  pay  mar- 
gins, but  I  knew  that  Demorest  was  here, 
and  I  reckoned  on  his  seeing  me  through." 
He  stopped  and  colored,  but  added  hope- 
fully, "  I  reckon  I  'm  safe,  anyway,  for  just 


212  THESE  PARTNERS. 

as  the  thing  was  over  those  same  clerks  of 
Van  Loo's  came  bounding  into  the  office  to 
buy  up  everything.  And  offered  to  take  it 
off  my  hands  and  pay  the  margins." 

"  And  you  ?  "  said  both  men  eagerly,  and 
in  a  breath. 

Barker  stared  at  them,  and  reddened  and 
paled  by  turns.  "  I  held  on,"  he  stam- 
mered. "  You  see,  boys  "  — 

Both  men  had  caught  him  by  the  arms. 
**  How  much  have  you  got  ? "  they  said, 
shaking  him  as  if  to  precipitate  the  answer. 

"  It 's  a  heap  !  "  said  Barker.  "  It  's  a 
ghastly  lot  now  I  think  of  it.  I  'm  afraid 
I  'm  in  for  fifty  thousand,  if  a  cent." 

To  his  infinite  astonishment  and  delight 
he  was  alternately  hugged  and  tossed  back- 
wards and  forwards  between  the  two  men 
quite  in  the  fashion  of  the  old  days.  Breath- 
less but  laughing,  he  at  length  gasped  out, 
"  What  does  it  all  mean?  " 

"  Tell  him  everything,  Jim,  —  everything," 
said  Demorest  quickly. 

Stacy  briefly  related  the  story  of  the  for- 
gery, and  then  laid  the  letter  and  its  copy 
before  him.  But  Barker  only  read  the 
forgery. 


THEEE  PARTNERS.  213 

"  How  could  you,  Stacy  —  one  of  the 
three  partners  of  Heavy  Tree  —  be  deceived  ! 
Don't  you  see  it 's  Phil's  handwriting  —  but 
it  is  n't  Phil !  " 

"  But  have  you  any  idea  who  it  is  ?  "  said 
Stacy. 

"Not  me,"  said  Barker,  with  widely 
opened  eyes.  "  You  see  it  must  be  some- 
body whom  we  are  familiar  with.  I  can't 
imagine  such  a  scoundrel." 

"  How  did  you  know  that  Demorest  had 
stock  ?  "  asked  Stacy. 

"  He  told  me  in  one  of  his  letters  and 
advised  me  to  go  into  it.  But  just  then 
Kitty  wanted  money,  I  think,  and  I  did  n't 
go  in." 

"  I  remember  it,"  struck  in  Demorest. 
"  But  surely  it  was  no  secret.  My  name 
would  be  on  the  transfer  books  for  any  one 
to  see." 

"  Not  so,"  said  Stacy  quickly.  "  You 
were  one  of  the  original  shareholders  ;  there 
was  no  transfer,  and  the  books  as  well  as 
the  shares  of  the  company  were  in  my 
hands." 

"  And  your  clerks  ?  "  added  Demorest. 

Stacy   was    silent.     After    a    pause    he 


214  THREE  PARTNERS. 

asked,  "  Did  anybody  ever  see  that  letter, 
Barker  ?  " 

"  No  one  but  myself  and  Kitty." 

"  And  would  she  be  likely  to  talk  of  it  ?  " 
continued  Stacy. 

"  Of  course  not.  Why  should  she  ? 
Whom  could  she  talk  to  ?  "  Yet  he  stopped 
suddenly,  and  then  with  his  characteristic 
reaction  added,  with  a  laugh,  "  Why  no,  cer- 
tainly not." 

"  Of  course,  everybody  knew  that  you 
had  bought  the  shares  at  Sacramento  ?  " 

"  Yes.  Why,  you  know  I  told  you  the 
Van  Loo  clerks  came  to  me  and  wanted  to 
take  it  off  my  hands." 

"  Yes,  I  remember  ;  the  Van  Loo  clerks ; 
they  knew  it,  of  course,"  said  Stacy  with  a 
grim  smile.  "Well,  boys,"  he  said,  with 
sudden  alacrity,  "  I  'm  going  to  turn  in,  for 
by  sun-up  to-morrow  I  must  be  on  my  way 
to  catch  the  first  train  at  the  Divide  for 
'Frisco.  We  '11  hunt  this  thing  down  to- 
gether, for  I  reckon  we  're  all  concerned  in 
it,"  he  added,  looking  at  the  others,  "  and 
once  more  we  're  partners  as  in  the  old  times. 
Let  us  even  say  that  I  've  given  Barker's 
signal  or  password,"  he  added,  with  a  laugh, 


THREE  PARTNERS.  215 

"  and  we  '11  stick  together.  Barker  boy," 
he  went  on,  grasping  his  younger  partner's 
hand, "  your  instinct  has  saved  us  this  time  ; 
d — d  if  I  don't  sometimes  think  it  better 
than  any  other  man's  sabe ;  only,"  he 
dropped  his  voice  slightly,  "  I  wish  you  had 
it  in  other  things  than  finance.  Phil,  I  've 
a  word  to  say  to  you  alone  before  I  go.  I 
may  want  you  to  follow  me." 

"  But  what  can  I  do  ? "  said  Barker 
eagerly.  "  You  're  not  going  to  leave  me 
out." 

"  You  've  done  quite  enough  for  us,  old 
man,"  said  Stacy,  laying  his  hand  on  Bar- 
ker's shoulder.  "  And  it  may  be  for  us  to 
do  something  for  you.  Trot  off  to  bed  now, 
like  a  good  boy.  I  '11  keep  you  posted  when 
the  time  comes." 

Shoving  the  protesting  and  leave-taking 
Barker  with  paternal  familiarity  from  the 
room,  he  closed  the  door  and  faced  Demorest. 

"  He  's  the  best  fellow  in  the  world,"  said 
Stacy  quietly,  "  and  has  saved  the  situation ; 
but  we  mustn't  trust  too  much  to  him  for 
the  present  —  not  even  seem  to." 

"  Nonsense,  man !  "  said  Demorest  impa- 
tiently. "  You  're  letting  your  prejudices 


216  THESE  PARTNERS. 

go  too  far.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you 
suspect  his  wife." 

"  D — n  his  wife  !  "  said  Stacy  almost  sav- 
agely. "  Leave  her  out  of  this.  It 's  Van 
Loo  that  I  suspect.  It  was  Van  Loo  who 
I  knew  was  behind  it,  who  expected  to  profit 
by  it,  and  now  we  have  lost  him." 

"  But  how?  "  said  Demorest,  astonished. 

"  How  ? "  repeated  Stacy  impatiently. 
"  You  know  what  Barker  said  ?  Van  Loo, 
either  through  stupidity,  fright,  or  the  wish 
to  get  the  lowest  prices,  was  too  late  to  buy 
up  the  market.  If  he  had,  we  might  have 
openly  declared  the  forgery,  and  if  it  was 
known  that  he  or  his  friends  had  profited  by 
it,  even  if  we  could  not  have  proven  his 
actual  complicity,  we  could  at  least  have 
made  it  too  hot  for  him  in  California.  But," 
said  Stacy,  looking  intently  at  his  friend, 
"  do  you  know  how  the  case  stands  now  ?  " 

"  Well,"  said  Demorest,  a  little  uneasily 
under  his  friend's  keen  eyes,  "  we  've  lost 
that  chance,  but  we  've  kept  control  of  the 
stock." 

"  You  think  so  ?  Well,  let  me  tell  you 
how  the  case  stands  and  the  price  we  pay 
for  it,"  said  Stacy  deliberately,  as  he  folded 


THREE  PARTNERS.  217 

his  arms  and  gazed  at  Demorest.  "You 
and  I,  well  known  as  old  friends  and  former 
partners,  for  no  apparent  reason  —  for  we 
cannot  prove  the  forgery  now  —  have  thrown 
upon  the  market  all  our  stock,  with  the 
usual  effect  of  depreciating  it.  Another  old 
friend  and  former  partner  has  bought  it  in 
and  sent  up  the  price.  A  common  trick,  a 
vulgar  trick,  but  not  a  trick  worthy  of  James 
Stacy  or  Stacy's  Bank !  " 

"  But  why  not  simply  declare  the  forgery 
without  making  any  specific  charge  against 
Van  Loo?" 

"Do  you  imagine,  Phil,  that  any  man 
would  believe  it,  and  the  story  of  a  providen- 
tially appointed  friend  like  Barker  who  saved 
us  from  loss?  Why,  all  California,  from 
Cape  Mendocino  to  Los  Angeles,  would  roar 
with  laughter  over  it !  No !  We  must  swal- 
low it  and  the  reputation  of  'jockeying' 
with  the  Wheat  Trust,  too.  That  Trust 's  as 
good  as  done  for,  for  the  present !  Now  you 
know  why  I  didn't  want  poor  Barker  to 
know  it,  nor  have  much  to  do  with  our 
search  for  the  forger." 

"  It  would  break  the  dear  fellow's  heart  if 
he  knew  it,"  said  Demorest. 


218  THESE  PARTNERS. 

"  Well,  it 's  to  save  him  from  having  his 
heart  broken  further  that  I  intend  to  find 
out  this  forger,"  said  Stacy  grimly.  "  Good- 
night, Phil !  I  '11  telegraph  to  you  when  I 
want  you,  and  then  come  !  " 

With  another  grip  of  the  hand  he  left 
Demorest  to  his  thoughts.  In  the  first  ex- 
citement of  meeting  his  old  partners,  and  in 
the  later  discovery  of  the  forgery,  Demorest 
had  been  diverted  from  his  old  sorrow,  and 
for  the  tune  had  forgotten  it  hi  sympathetic 
interest  with  the  present.  But,  to  his  hor- 
ror, when  alone  again,  he  found  that  interest 
growing  as  remote  and  vapid  as  the  stories 
they  had  laughed  over  at  the  table,  and  even 
the  excitement  of  the  forged  letter  and  its 
consequences  began  to  be  as  unreal,  as  im- 
potent, as  shadowy,  as  the  memory  of  the 
attempted  robbery  in  the  old  cabin  on  that 
very  spot.  He  was  ashamed  of  that  selfish- 
ness which  still  made  him  cling  to  this  past, 
so  much  his  own,  that  he  knew  it  debarred 
him  from  the  human  sympathy  of  his  com- 
rades. And  even  Barker,  in  whose  court- 
ship and  marriage  he  had  tried  to  resuscitate 
his  youthful  emotions  and  condone  his  selfish 
errors  —  even  the  suggestion  of  his  unhappi- 


THREE  PARTNERS.  219 

ness  only  touched  him  vaguely.  He  would 
no  longer  be  a  slave  to  the  Past,  or  the 
memory  that  had  deluded  him  a  few  hours 
ago.  He  walked  to  the  window  ;  alas,  there 
was  the  same  prospect  that  had  looked  upon 
his  dreams,  had  lent  itself  to  his  old  visions. 
There  was  the  eternal  outline  of  the  hills ; 
there  rose  the  steadfast  pines  ;  there  was  no 
change  in  them.  It  was  this  surrounding 
constancy  of  nature  that  had  affected  him. 
He  turned  away  and  entered  the  bedroom. 
Here  he  suddenly  remembered  that  the 
mother  of  this  vague  enemy,  Van  Loo,  —  for 
his  feeling  towards  him  was  still  vague,  as 
few  men  really  hate  the  personality  they 
don't  know,  —  had  only  momentarily  vacated 
it,  and  to  his  distaste  of  his  own  intrusion 
was  now  added  the  profound  irony  of  his 
sleeping  in  the  same  bed  lately  occupied  by 
the  mother  of  the  man  who  was  suspected  of 
having  forged  his  name.  He  smiled  faintly 
and  looked  around  the  apartment.  It  was 
handsomely  furnished,  and  although  it  still 
had  much  of  the  characterlessness  of  the 
hotel  room,  it  was  distinctly  flavored  by  its 
last  occupant,  and  still  brightened  by  that 
mysterious  instinct  of  the  sex  which  is  inevi- 


220  THESE  PARTNERS. 

table.  Where  a  man  would  have  simply 
left  his  forgotten  slippers  or  collars  there 
was  a  glass  of  still  unf aded  flowers  ;  the  cold 
marble  top  of  the  dressing-table  was  littered 
with  a  few  linen  and  silk  toilet  covers ;  and 
on  the  mantel-shelf  was  a  sheaf  of  photo- 
graphs. He  walked  towards  them  mechan- 
ically, glanced  at  them  abstractedly,  and  then 
stopped  suddenly  with  a  beating  heart. 
Before  him  was  the  picture  of  his  past,  the 
photograph  of  the  one  woman  who  had  filled 
his  life ! 

He  cast  a  hurried  glance  around  the  room 
as  if  he  half  expected  to  see  the  original 
start  up  before  him,  and  then  eagerly  seized 
it  and  hurried  with  it  to  the  light.  Yes! 
yes !  It  was  she,  —  she  as  she  had  lived  in 
his  actual  memory ;  she  as  she  had  lived  in 
his  dream.  He  saw  her  sweet  eyes,  but  the 
frightened,  innocent  trouble  had  passed  from 
them ;  there  was  the  sensitive  elegance  of 
her  graceful  figure  in  evening  dress ;  but  the 
figure  was  fuller  and  maturer.  Could  he  be 
mistaken  by  some  wonderful  resemblance 
acting  upon  his  too  willing  brain  ?  He 
turned  the  photograph  over.  No ;  there  on 
the  other  side,  written  in  her  own  childlike 


THREE  PARTNERS.  221 

hand,  endeared  and  familiar  to  his  recollec- 
tion, was  her  own  name,  and  the  date !  It 
was  surely  she ! 

How  did  it  come  there?  Did  the  Van 
Loos  know  her  ?  It  was  taken  in  Venice  ; 
there  was  the  address  of  the  photographers. 
The  Van  Loos  were  foreigners,  he  remem- 
bered ;  they  had  traveled ;  perhaps  had  met 
her  there  in  1858  :  that  was  the  date  in  her 
handwriting  ;  that  was  the  date  on  the  pho- 
tographer's address  —  1858.  Suddenly  he 
laid  the  photograph  down,  took  with  trem- 
bling fingers  a  letter-case  from  his  pocket, 
opened  it,  and  laid  his  last  letter  to  her,  in- 
dorsed with  the  cruel  announcement  of  her 
death,  before  him  on  the  table.  He  passed 
his  hand  across  his  forehead  and  opened  the 
letter.  It  was  dated  1856  !  The  photograph 
must  have  been  taken  two  years  after  her 
alleged  death ! 

He  examined  it  again  eagerly,  fixedly, 
tremblingly.  A  wild  impulse  to  summon 
Barker  or  Stacy  on  the  spot  was  restrained 
with  difficulty  and  only  when  he  remembered 
that  they  could  not  help  him.  Then  he  be- 
gan to  oscillate  between  a  joy  and  a  new  fear, 
which  now,  for  the  first  time,  began  to  dawn 


222  THREE  PARTNERS. 

upon  him.  If  the  news  of  her  death  had 
been  a  fiendish  trick  of  her  relations,  why 
had .  she  never  sought  him  ?  It  was  not  ill 
health,  restraint,  nor  fear ;  there  was  nothing 
but  happiness  and  the  strength  of  youth 
and  beauty  in  that  face  and  figure.  He,  had 
not  disappeared  from  the  world ;  he  was 
known  of  men ;  more,  his  memorable  good 
fortune  must  have  reached  her  ears.  Had 
he  wasted  all  these  miserable  years  to  find 
himself  abandoned,  forgotten,  perhaps  even 
a  dupe?  For  the  first  time  the  sting  of 
jealousy  entered  his  soul.  Perhaps,  uncon- 
sciously to  himself,  his  strange  and  varying 
feelings  that  afternoon  had  been  the  gather- 
ing climax  of  his  mental  condition ;  at  all 
events,  in  the  sudden  revulsion  there  was  a 
shaking  off  of  his  apathetic  thought ;  there 
was  activity,  even  if  it  was  the  activity  of 
pain.  Here  was  a  mystery  to  be  solved,  a 
secret  to  be  discovered,  a  past  wrong  to  be 
exposed,  an  enemy  or,  perhaps,  even  a  faith- 
less love  to  be  punished.  Perhaps  he  had 
even  saved  his  reason  at  the  expense  of  his 
love.  He  quickly  replaced  the  photograph 
on  the  mantel-shelf,  returned  the  letter  care- 
fully to  his  pocket-book,  —  no  longer  a  sou- 


THESE  PARTNERS.  223 

tenir  of  the  past,  but  a  proof  of  treachery, 
—  and  began  to  mechanically  undress  him- 
self. He  was  quite  calm  now,  and  went  to 
bed  with  a  strange  sense  of  relief,  and  slept 
as  he  had  not  slept  since  he  was  a  boy. 

The  whole  hotel  had  sunk  to  rest  by  this 
time,  and  then  began  the  usual  slow,  nightly 
invasion  and  investment  of  it  by  nature. 
For  all  its  broad  verandas  and  glaring  ter- 
races, its  long  ranges  of  windows  and  glit- 
tering crest  of  cupola  and  tower,  it  gradually 
succumbed  to  the  more  potent  influences 
around  it,  and  became  their  sport  and  play- 
ground. The  mountain  breezes  from  the 
distant  summit  swept  down  upon  its  flimsy 
structure,  shook  the  great  glass  windows  as 
with  a  strong  hand,  and  sent  the  balm  of 
bay  and  spruce  through  every  chink  and 
cranny.  In  the  great  hall  and  corridors  the 
carpets  billowed  with  the  intruding  blast 
along  the  floors ;  there  was  the  murmur  of 
the  pines  in  the  passages,  and  the  damp 
odor  of  leaves  in  the  dining-room.  There 
was  the  cry  of  night  birds  in  the  creaking 
cupola,  and  the  swift  rush  of  dark  wings 
past  bedroom  windows.  Lissome  shapes 
crept  along  the  terraces  between  the  stolid 


224  THREE  PARTNERS. 

wooden  statues,  or,  bolder,  scampered  the 
whole  length  of  the  great  veranda.  In  the 
lulling  of  the  wind  the  breath  of  the  woods 
was  everywhere ;  even  the  aroma  of  swelling 
sap  —  as  if  the  ghastly  stumps  on  the  defor- 
ested slope  behind  the  hotel  were  bleeding 
afresh  in  the  dewless  night  —  stung  the  eyes 
and  nostrils  of  the  sleepers. 

It  was,  perhaps,  from  such  cause  as  this 
that  Barker  was  awakened  suddenly  by  the 
voice  of  the  boy  from  the  crib  beside  him, 
crying,  "  Mamma  !  mamma  !  "  Taking  the 
child  in  his  arms,  he  comforted  him,  saying 
she  would  come  that  morning,  and  showed 
him  the  faint  dawn  already  veiling  with 
color  the  ghostly  pallor  of  the  Sierras.  As 
they  looked  at  it  a  great  star  shot  forth  from 
its  brethren  and  fell.  It  did  not  fall  per- 
pendicularly, but  seemed  for  some  seconds 
to  slip  along  the  slopes  of  Black  Spur, 
gleaming  through  the  trees  like  a  chariot  of 
fire.  It  pleased  the  child  to  say  that  it  was 
the  light  of  mamma's  buggy  that  was  fetch- 
ing her  home,  and  it  pleased  the  father 
to  encourage  the  boy's  fancy.  And  talking 
thus  in  confidential  whispers  they  fell  asleep 
once  more,  the  father  —  himself  a  child  in 


THESE  PARTNERS.  225 

so  many  things  —  holding  the  smaller  and 
frailer  hand  in  his. 

They  did  not  know  that  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Divide  the  wife  and  mother, 
scared,  doubting,  and  desperate,  by  the  side 
of  her  scared,  doubting,  and  desperate  accom- 
plice, was  flying  down  the  slope  on  her 
night-long  road  to  ruin.  Still  less  did  they 
know  that,  with  the  early  singing  birds,  a 
careless  horseman,  emerging  from  the  trail 
as  the  dust-stained  buggy  dashed  past  him, 
glanced  at  it  with  a  puzzled  air,  uttered  a 
quiet  whistle  of  surprise,  and  then,  wheeling 
his  horse,  gayly  cantered  after  it. 


CHAPTER  V. 

IN  the  exercise  of  his  arduous  profession, 
Jack  Hamlin  had  sat  up  all  night  in  the 
magnolia  saloon  of  the  Divide,  and  as  it 
was  rather  early  to  go  to  bed,  he  had,  after 
his  usual  habit,  shaken  off  the  sedentary 
attitude  and  prepared  himself  for  sleep  by 
a  fierce  preliminary  gallop  in  the  woods. 
Besides,  he  had  been  a  large  winner,  and  on 
those  occasions  he  generally  isolated  himself 
from  his  companions  to  avoid  foolish  alter- 
cations with  inexperienced  players.  Even 
in  fighting  Jack  was  fastidious,  and  did  not 
like  to  have  his  stomach  for  a  real  difficulty 
distended  and  vitiated  by  small  preliminary 
indulgences. 

He  was  just  emerging  from  the  wood  into 
the  highroad  when  a  buggy  dashed  past 
him,  containing  a  man  and  a  woman.  The 
woman  wore  a  thick  veil ;  the  man  was 
almost  undistinguishable  from  dust.  The 
glimpse  was  momentary,  but  dislike  has  a 


THREE  PARTNERS.  227 

keen  eye,  and  in  that  glimpse  Mr.  Hamlin 
recognized  Van  Loo.  The  situation  was 
equally  clear.  The  bent  heads  and  averted 
faces,  the  dust  collected  in  the  heedlessness 
of  haste,  the  early  hour,  —  indicating  a 
night-long  flight,  —  all  made  it  plain  to  him 
that  Van  Loo  was  running  away  with  some 
woman.  Mr.  Hamlin  had  no  moral  scruples, 
but  he  had  the  ethics  of  a  sportsman,  which 
he  knew  Mr.  Van  Loo  was  not.  Whether 
the  woman  was  an  innocent  schoolgirl  or  an 
actress,  he  was  satisfied  that  Van  Loo  was 
doing  a  mean  thing  meanly.  Mr.  Hamlin 
also  had  a  taste  for  mischief,  and  whether 
the  woman  was  or  was  not  fair  game,  he 
knew  that  for  his  purposes  Van  Loo  was. 
With  the  greatest  cheerfulness  in  the  world 
he  wheeled  his  horse  and  cantered  after 
them. 

They  were  evidently  making  for  the 
Divide  and  a  fresh  horse,  or  to  take  the 
coach  due  an  hour  later.  It  was  Mr.  Ham- 
lin's  present  object  to  circumvent  this,  and, 
therefore,  it  was  quite  in  his  way  to  return. 
Incidentally,  however,  the  superior  speed  of 
his  horse  gave  him  the  opportunity  of  fre- 
quently lunging  towards  them  at  a  furious 


228  THREE  PARTNERS.   • 

pace,  which  had  the  effect  of  frantically  in- 
creasing their  own  speed,  when  he  would 
pull  up  with  a  silent  laugh  before  he  was 
fairly  discovered,  and  allow  the  sound  of  his 
rapid  horse's  hoofs  to  die  out.  In  this  way 
he  amused  himself  until  the  straggling  town 
of  the  Divide  came  in  sight,  when,  putting 
his  spurs  to  his  horse  again,  he  managed, 
under  pretense  of  the  animal  becoming  un- 
governable, to  twice  "cross  the  bows  "  of  the 
fugitives,  compelling  them  to  slacken  speed. 
At  the  second  of  these  passages  Van  Loo 
apparently  lost  prudence,  and  slashing  out 
with  his  whip,  the  lash  caught  slightly  on 
the  counter  of  Hainliii's  horse.  Mr.  Ham- 
lin  instantly  acknowledged  it  by  lifting  his 
hat  gravely,  and  speeded  on  to  the  hotel, 
arriving  at  the  steps  and  throwing  himself 
from  the  saddle  exactly  as  the  buggy  drove 
up.  With  characteristic  audacity,  he  ac- 
tually assisted  the  frightened  and  eager  wo- 
man to  alight  and  run  into  the  hotel.  But 
in  this  action  her  veil  was  accidentally  lifted. 
Mr.  Hamlin  instantly  recognized  the  pretty 
woman  who  had  been  pointed  out  to  him  in 
San  Francisco  as  Mrs.  Barker,  the  wife  of 
one  of  the  partners  whose  fortunes  had  im- 


THESE  PARTNERS.  229 

terested  him  five  years  ago.  It  struck  him 
that  this  was  an  additional  reason  for  his 
interference  on  Barker's  account,  although 
personally  he  could  not  conceive  why  a  man 
should  ever  try  to  prevent  a  woman  from 
running  away  from  him.  But  then  Mr. 
Hamlin's  personal  experiences  had  been 
quite  the  other  way. 

It  was  enough,  however,  to  cause  him  to 
lay  his  hand  lightly  on  Van  Loo's  arm  as 
the  latter,  leaping  down,  was  about  to  follow 
Mrs.  Barker  into  the  hotel.  "  You  '11  have 
time  enough  now,"  said  Hamlin. 

"Tune  for  what?"  said  Van  Loo  sav- 
agely. 

"Time  to  apologize  for  having  cut  my 
horse  with  your  whip,"  said  Jack  sweetly. 
"We  don't  want  to  quarrel  before  a  wo- 
man." 

"  I  've  no  time  for  fooling !  "  said  Van 
Loo,  endeavoring  to  pass. 

But  Jack's  hand  had  slipped  to  Van 
Loo's  wrist,  although  he  still  smiled  cheer- 
fully. "  Ah  !  Then  you  did  mean  it,  and 
you  propose  to  give  me  satisfaction  ?  " 

Van  Loo  paled  slightly ;  he  knew  Jack's 
reputation  as  a  duelist.  But  he  was  des- 


230  THREE  PARTNERS. 

perate.  "  You  see  my  position,"  he  said 
hurriedly.  "  I  'm  in  a  hurry ;  I  have  a 
lady  with  me.  No  man  of  honor  "  — 

"  You  do  me  wrong,"  interrupted  Jack, 
with  a  pained  expression,  —  "you  do,  in- 
deed. You  are  in  a  hurry  —  well,  I  have 
plenty  of  tune.  If  you  cannot  attend  to 
me  now,  why  I  will  be  glad  to  accompany 
you  and  the  lady  to  the  next  station.  Of 
course,"  he  added,  with  a  smile,  "  at  a  proper 
distance,  and  without  interfering  with  the 
lady,  whom  I  am  pleased  to  recognize  as  the 
wife  of  an  old  friend.  It  would  be  more 
sociable,  perhaps,  if  we  had  some  general 
conversation  on  the  road  ;  it  would  prevent 
her  being  alarmed.  I  might  even  be  of 
some  use  to  you.  If  we  are  overtaken  by 
her  husband  on  the  road,  for  instance,  I 
should  certainly  claim  the  right  to  have  the 
first  shot  at  you.  Boy !  "  he  called  to  the 
hostler,  "just  sponge  out  Pancho's  mouth, 
will  you,  to  be  ready  when  the  buggy 
goes?"  And,  loosening  his  grip  of  Van 
Loo's  wrist,  he  turned  away  as  the  other 
quickly  entered  the  hotel. 

But  Mr.  Van  Loo  did  not  immediately 
seek  Mrs.  Barker.  He  had  already  some 


THREE  PARTNERS.  231 

experience  of  that  lady's  nerves  and  irasci- 
bility on  the  drive,  and  had  begun  to  see  his 
error  in  taking  so  dangerous  an  impediment 
to  his  flight  from  the  country.  And  another 
idea  had  come  to  him.  He  had  already 
effected  his  purpose  of  compromising  her 
with  him  in  that  flight,  but  it  was  still 
known  only  to  few.  If  he  left  her  behind 
for  the  foolish,  doting  husband,  would  not 
that  devoted  man  take  her  back  to  avoid  a 
scandal,  and  even  forbear  to  pursue  him  for 
his  financial  irregularities?  What  were 
twenty  thousand  dollars  of  Mrs.  Barker's 
money  to  the  scandal  of  Mrs.  Barker's 
elopement?  Again,  the  failure  to  realize 
the  forgery  had  left  him  safe,  and  Barker 
was  sufficiently  potent  with  the  bank  and 
Demorest  to  hush  up  that  also.  Hamlin 
was  now  the  only  obstacle  to  his  flight ;  but 
even  he  would  scarcely  pursue  him  if  Mrs. 
Barker  were  left  behind.  And  it  would  be 
easier  to  elude  him  if  he  did. 

In  his  preoccupation  Van  Loo  did  not  see 
that  he  had  entered  the  bar-room,  but,  find- 
ing himself  there,  he  moved  towards  the 
bar;  a  glass  of  spirits  would  revive  him. 
As  he  drank  it  he  saw  that  the  room  was 


232  THREE  PARTNERS. 

full  of  rough  men,  apparently  miners  OP 
packers  —  some  of  them  Mexican,  with  here 
and  there  a  Kanaka  or  Australian.  Two 
men  more  ostentatiously  clad,  though  appar- 
ently on  equal  terms  with  the  others,  were 
standing  in  the  corner  with  their  backs 
towards  him.  From  the  general  silence  as 
he  entered  he  imagined  that  he  had  been  the 
subject  of  conversation,  and  that  his  alter- 
cation with  Hamlin  had  been  overheard. 
Suddenly  one  of  the  two  men  turned  and 
approached  him.  To  his  consternation  he 
recognized  Steptoe,  —  Steptoe,  whom  he  had 
not  seen  for  five  years  until  last  night,  when 
he  had  avoided  him  in  the  courtyard  of  the 
Boomville  Hotel.  His  first  instinct  was  to 
retreat,  but  it  was  too  late.  And  the  spirits 
had  warmed  him  into  temporary  reckless- 
ness. 

"  You  ain't  goin'  to  be  backed  down  by  a 
short-card  gambler,  are  yer  ?  "  said  Steptoe, 
with  coarse  familiarity. 

"  I  have  a  lady  with  me,  and  am  pressed 
for  time,"  said  Van  Loo  quickly.  "  He 
knows  it,  otherwise  he  would  not  have 
dared  "  — 

"Well,  look  here,"  said  Steptoe  roughly. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  233 

"  I  ain't  particularly  sweet  on  you,  as  you 
know ;  but  I  and  these  gentlemen,"  he  added, 
glancing  around  the  room,  "  ain't  particu- 
larly sweet  on  Mr.  Jack  Hamlin  neither, 
and  we  kalkilate  to  stand  by  you  if  you  say 
so.  Now,  I  reckon  you  want  to  get  away 
with  the  woman,  and  the  quicker  the  better, 
as  you  're  afraid  there  '11  be  somebody  after 
you  afore  long.  That 's  the  way  it  pans  out, 
don't  it  ?  Well,  when  you  're  ready  to  go, 
and  you  just  tip  us  the  wink,  we  '11  get  in  a 
circle  round  Jack  and  cover  him,  and  if  he 
starts  after  you  we  '11  send  him  on  a  little 
longer  journey  !  —  eh,  boys  ?  " 

The  men  muttered  their  approval,  and  one 
or  two  drew  their  revolvers  from  their  belts. 
Van  Loo's  heart,  which  had  leaped  at  first 
at  this  proposal  of  help,  sank  at  this  failure 
of  his  little  plan  of  abandoning  Mrs.  Barker. 
He  hesitated,  and  then  stammered,  "  Thank 
you !  Haste  is  everything  with  us  now ; 
but  I  should  n't  mind  leaving  the  lady  among 
chivalrous  gentlemen  like  yourselves  for  a 
few  hours  only,  until  I  could  communicate 
with  my  friends  and  return  to  properly  chas- 
tise this  scoundrel." 

Steptoe  drew  in  his  breath  with  a  slight 


234  THREE  PARTNERS. 

whistle,  and  gazed  at  Van  Loo.  He  instantly 
understood  him.  But  the  plea  did  not  suit 
Steptoe,  who,  for  purposes  of  his  own,  wished 
to  put  Mrs.  Barker  beyond  her  husband's 
possible  reach.  He  smiled  grimly.  "  I 
think  you  'd  better  take  the  woman  with 
you,"  he  said.  "  I  don't  think,"  he  added 
in  a  lower  voice,  "  that  the  boys  would  like 
your  leaving  her.  They  're  very  high-toned, 
they  are  !  "  he  concluded  ironically. 

"  Then,"  said  Van  Loo,  with  another  des- 
perate idea,  "  could  you  not  let  us  have 
saddle-horses  instead  of  the  buggy?  We 
could  travel  faster,  and  in  the  event  of  pur- 
suit and  anything  happening  to  me,"  he 
added  loftily,  "  she  at  least  could  escape  her 
pursuer's  vengeance." 

This  suited  Steptoe  equally  well,  as  long 
as  the  guilty  couple  fled  together,  and  in 
the  presence  of  witnesses.  But  he  was  not 
deceived  by  Van  Loo's  heroic  suggestion  of 
self-sacrifice.  "  Quite  right,"  he  said  sarcas- 
tically, "  it  shall  be  done,  and  I  've  no  doubt 
one  of  you  will  escape.  I  '11  send  the  horses 
round  to  the  back  door  and  keep  the  buggy 
in  front.  That  will  keep  Jack  there,  too,  — 
with  the  boys  handy." 


THESE  PARTNERS.  235 

But  Mr.  Hamlin  had  quite  as  accurate  an 
idea  of  Mr.  Van  Loo's  methods  and  of  his 
awn  standing  with  Steptoe's  gang  of  roughs 
as  Mr.  Steptoe  himself.  More  than  that, 
he  also  had  a  hold  on  a  smaller  but  more 
devoted  and  loyal  following  than  Steptoe's. 
The  employees  and  hostlers  of  the  hotel 
worshiped  him.  A  single  word  of  inquiry 
revealed  to  him  the  fact  that  the  buggy  was 
not  going  on,  but  that  Mr.  Van  Loo  and 
Mrs.  Barker  were  —  on  two  horses,  a  tem- 
porary side-saddle  having  been  constructed 
out  of  a  mule's  pack-tree.  At  which  Mr. 
Hamlin,  with  his  usual  audacity,  walked  into 
the  bar-room,  and  going  to  the  bar  leaned 
carelessly  against  it.  Then  turning  to  the 
lowering  faces  around  him,  he  said,  with  a 
flash  of  his  white  teeth,  "  Well,  boys,  I  'm 
calculating  to  leave  the  Divide  in  a  few 
minutes  to  follow  some  friends  in  the  buggy, 
and  it  seems  to  me  only  the  square  thing 
to  stand  the  liquor  for  the  crowd,  without 
prejudice  to  any  feeling  or  roughness  there 
may  be  against  me.  Everybody  who  knows 
me  knows  that  I  'm  generally  there  when  the 
band  plays,  and  I  'm  pretty  sure  to  turn  up 
for  that  sort  of  tiling.  So  you  '11  just  con- 


236  THESE  PARTNERS. 

sider  that  I  've  had  a  good  game  on  the 
Divide,  and  I  'm  reckoning  it 's  only  fair  to 
leave  a  little  of  it  behind  me  here,  to 
4  sweeten  the  pot '  until  I  call  again.  I 
only  ask  you,  gentlemen,  to  drink  success  to 
my  friends  in  the  buggy  as  early  and  as 
often  as  you  can."  He  flung  two  gold  pieces 
on  the  counter  and  paused,  smiling. 

He  was  right  in  his  conjecture.  Even 
the  men  who  would  have  willingly  "  held 
him  up  "  a  moment  after,  at  the  bidding  of 
Steptoe,  saw  no  reason  for  declining  a  free 
drink  "  without  prejudice."  And  it  was  a 
part  of  the  irony  of  the  situation  that  Step- 
toe  and  Van  Loo  were  also  obliged  to  parti- 
cipate to  keep  in  with  their  partisans.  It 
was,  however,  an  opportune  diversion  to  Van 
Loo,  who  managed  to  get  nearer  the  door 
leading  to  the  back  entrance  of  the  hotel, 
and  to  Mr.  Jack  Hamlin,  who  was  watching 
him,  as  the  men  closed  up  to  the  bar. 

The  toast  was  drunk  with  acclamation, 
followed  by  another  and  yet  another.  Step- 
toe  and  Van  Loo,  who  had  kept  their  heads 
cool,  were  both  wondering  if  Hanilin's  inten- 
tion were  to  intoxicate  and  incapacitate  the 
crowd  at  the  crucial  moment,  and  Steptoe 


THREE  PARTNERS.  237 

smiled  grimly  over  his  superior  knowledge  of 
their  alcoholic  capacity.  But  suddenly  there 
was  the  greater  diversion  of  a  shout  from 
the  road,  the  on-coming  of  a  cloud  of  red 
dust,  and  the  halt  of  another  vehicle  before 
the  door.  This  time  it  was  no  jaded  single 
horse  and  dust-stained  buggy,  but  a  double 
team  of  four  spirited  trotters,  whose  coats 
were  scarcely  turned  with  foam,  before  a 
light  station  wagon  containing  a  single  man. 
But  that  man  was  instantly  recognized  by 
every  one  of  the  outside  loungers  and  stable- 
boys  as  well  as  the  staring  crowd  within  the 
saloon.  It  was  James  Stacy,  the  millionaire 
and  banker.  No  one  but  himself  knew  that 
he  had  covered  half  the  distance  of  a  night- 
long ride  from  Boomville  in  two  hours. 
But  before  they  could  voice  their  astonish- 
ment Stacy  had  thrown  a  letter  to  the  obse- 
quious landlord,  and  then  gathering  up  the 
reins  had  sped  away  to  the  railroad  station 
half  a  mile  distant. 

"  Looks  as  if  the  Boss  of  Creation  was  in 
a  hurry,"  said  one  of  the  eager  gazers  in  the 
doorway.  "  Somebody  goin'  to  get  smashed, 
sure." 

"More   like  as  if   he  was  just   humpin' 


238  THREE  PARTNERS. 

himself  to  keep  from  getting  smashed,"  said 
Steptoe.  "  The  bank  has  n't  got  over  the 
effect  of  their  smart  deal  in  the  Wheat 
Trust.  Everything  they  had  in  their  hands 
tumbled  yesterday  in  Sacramento.  Men  like 
me  and  you  ain't  goin'  to  trust  their  money 
to  be  '  jockeyed '  with  in  that  style.  No- 
body but  a  man  with  a  swelled  head  like 
Stacy  would  have  even  dared  to  try  it  on. 
And  now,  by  G — d !  he  's  got  to  pay  for 
it." 

The  harsh,  exultant  tone  of  the  speaker 
showed  that  he  had  quite  forgotten  Van 
Loo  and  Hamlin  in  his  superior  hatred  of 
the  millionaire,  and  both  men  noticed  it. 
Van  Loo  edged  still  nearer  to  the  door,  as 
Steptoe  continued,  "  Ever  since  he  made 
that  big  strike  on  Heavy  Tree  five  years 
ago,  the  country  has  n't  been  big  enough  to 
hold  him.  But  mark  my  words,  gentlemen, 
the  time  ain't  far  off  when  he  '11  find  a  two- 
foot  ditch  again  and  a  pick  and  grub  wages 
room  enough  and  to  spare  for  him  and  his 
kind  of  cattle." 

"You  're  not  drinking,"  said  Jack  Hamlin 
cheerfully. 

Steptoe  turned  towards  the  bar,  and  then 


THREE  PARTNERS.  239 

started.  "  Where  's  Van  Loo  ?  "  he  de- 
manded of  Jack  sharply. 

Jack  jerked  his  thumb  over  his  shoulder. 
"  Gone  to  hurry  up  his  girl,  I  reckon.  I 
calculate  he  ain't  got  much  time  to  fool 
away  here." 

Steptoe  glanced  suspiciously  at  Jack.  But 
at  the  same  moment  they  were  all  startled 
—  even  Jack  himself  —  at  the  apparition  of 
Mrs.  Barker  passing  hurriedly  along  the 
veranda  before  the  windows  in  the  direction 
of  the  still  waiting  buggy.  "  D — n  it ! "  said 
Steptoe  in  a  fierce  whisper  to  the  man  next 
him.  "Tell  her  not  there  —  at  the  back 
door  !  "  But  before  the  messenger  reached 
the  door  there  was  a  sudden  rattle  of  wheels, 
and  with  one  accord  all  except  Hamlin 
rushed  to  the  veranda,  only  to  see  Mrs. 
Barker  driving  rapidly  away  alone.  Steptoe 
turned  back  into  the  room,  but  Jack  also 
had  disappeared. 

For  in  the  confusion  created  at  the  sight 
of  Mrs.  Barker,  he  had  slipped  to  the  back 
door  and  found,  as  he  suspected,  only  one 
horse,  and  that  with  a  side-saddle  on.  His 
intuitions  were  right.  Van  Loo,  when  he 
disappeared  from  the  saloon,  had  instantly 


240  THREE  PARTNERS. 

fled,  taking  the  other  horse  and  abandoning 
the  woman  to  her  fate.  Jack  as  instantly 
leaped  upon  the  remaining  saddle  and  dashed 
after  him.  Presently  he  caught  a  glimpse 
of  the  fugitive  in  the  distance,  heard  the 
half-angry,  half-ironical  shouts  of  the  crowd 
at  the  back  door,  and  as  he  reached  the  hill- 
top saw,  with  a  mingling  of  satisfaction  and 
perplexity,  Mrs.  Barker  on  the  other  road, 
still  driving  frantically  in  the  direction  of 
the  railroad  station.  At  which  Mr.  Hanilin 
halted,  threw  away  his  encumbering  saddle, 
and,  good  rider  that  he  was,  remounted  the 
horse,  barebacked  but  for  his  blanket-pad, 
and  thrusting  his  knees  in  the  loose  girths, 
again  dashed  forwards,  —  with  such  good 
results  that,  as  Van  Loo  galloped  up  to  the 
stagecoach  office,  at  the  next  station,  and 
was  about  to  enter  the  waiting  coach  for 
Marysville,  the  soft  hand  of  Mr.  Hamlin 
was  laid  on  his  shoulder. 

"  I  told  you,"  said  Jack  blandly,  "  that  I 
had  plenty  of  time.  I  would  have  been  here 
before  and  even  overtaken  you,  only  you 
had  the  better  horse  and  the  only  saddle." 

Van  Loo  recoiled.  But  he  was  now  des- 
perate and  reckless.  Beckoning  Jack  out 


THREE  PARTNERS.  241 

of  earshot  of  the  other  passengers,  he  said 
with  tightened  lips,  "  Why  do  you  follow  me  ? 
What  is  your  purpose  in  coming  here  ?  " 

"  I  thought,"  said  Hamlin  dryly,  "  that  I 
was  to  have  the  pleasure  of  getting  satisfac- 
tion from  you  for  the  insult  you  gave  me." 

"  Well,  and  if  I  apologize  for  it,  what 
then  ?  "  he  said  quickly. 

Hamlin  looked  at  him  quietly.  "  Well,  I 
think  I  also  said  something  about  the  lady 
being  the  wife  of  a  friend  of  mine." 

"  And  I  have  left  her  behind.  Her  hus- 
band can  take  her  back  without  disgrace, 
for  no  one  knows  of  her  flight  but  you  and 
me.  Do  you  think  your  shooting  me  will 
save  her  ?  It  will  spread  the  scandal  far 
and  wide.  For  I  warn  you,  that  as  I  have 
apologized  for  what  you  choose  to  call  my 
personal  insult,  unless  you  murder  me  in 
cold  blood  without  witness,  I  shall  let  them 
know  the  reason  of  your  quarrel.  And  I 
can  tell  you  more:  if  you  only  succeed  in 
stopping  me  here,  and  make  me  lose  my 
chance  of  getting  away,  the  scandal  to  your 
friend  will  be  greater  still." 

Mr.  Hamlin  looked  at  Van  Loo  curiously. 
There  was  a  certain  amount  of  conviction  in 


242  THREE  PARTNERS. 

what  he  said.  He  had  never  met  this  kind 
of  creature  before.  He  had  surpassed  even 
Hamlin's  first  intuition  of  his  character. 
He  amused  and  interested  him.  But  Mr. 
Hamlin  was  also  a  man  of  the  world,  and 
knew  that  Van  Loo's  reasoning  might  be 
good.  He  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and 
said  gravely,  "  What  is  your  little  game  ?  " 

Van  Loo  had  been  seized  with  another 
inspiration  of  desperation.  Steptoe  had 
been  partly  responsible  for  this  situation. 
Van  Loo  knew  that  Jack  and  Steptoe  were 
not  friends.  He  had  certain  secrets  of  Step- 
toe's  that  might  be  of  importance  to  Jack. 
Why  should  he  not  try  to  make  friends  with 
this  powerful  free-lance  and  half -outlaw  ? 

"  It 's  a  game,"  he  said  significantly, 
"that  might  be  of  interest  to  your  friends  to 
hear." 

Hamlin  took  his  hands  out  of  his  pockets, 
turned  on  his  heel,  and  said,  "  Come  with 
me." 

"  But  I  must  go  by  that  coach  now,"  said 
Van  Loo  desperately,  "or  —  I  've  told  you 
what  would  happen." 

"  Come  with  me,"  said  Jack  coolly.  "  If 
I  'm  satisfied  with  what  you  tell  me,  I  '11  put 


THESE  PARTNERS.  243 

you  down  at  the  next  station  an  hour  before 
that  coach  gets  there." 

"  You  swear  it  ?  "  said  Van  Loo  hesitat- 
ingly. 

"  I  've  said  it,"  returned  Jack.  "  Come  !  " 
and  Van  Loo  followed  Mr.  Hamlin  into  the 
station  hotel. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  abrupt  disappearance  of  Jack  Hamlin 
and  the  strange  lady  and  gentleman  visitor 
was  scarcely  noticed  by  the  other  guests  of 
the  Divide  House,  and  beyond  the  circle 
of  Steptoe  and  his  friends,  who  were  a  dis- 
tinct party  and  strangers  to  the  town,  there 
was  no  excitement.  Indeed,  the  hotel  pro- 
prietor might  have  confounded  them  to- 
gether, and,  perhaps,  Van  Loo  was  not  far 
wrong  in  his  belief  that  their  identity  had 
not  been  suspected.  Nor  were  Steptoe's 
followers  very  much  concerned  in  an  episode 
in  which  they  had  taken  part  only  at  the 
suggestion  of  their  leader,  and  which  had 
terminated  so  tamely.  That  they  would 
have  liked  a  "  row,"  in  which  Jack  Hamlin 
would  have  been  incidentally  forced  to  dis- 
gorge his  winnings,  there  was  no  doubt,  but 
that  their  interference  was  asked  solely  to 
gratify  some  personal  spite  of  Steptoe's 
against  Van  Loo  was  equally  plain  to  them. 


THREE  PAETNERS.  245 

There  was  some  grumbling  and  outspoken 
criticism  of  his  methods. 

This  was  later  made  more  obvious  by  the 
arrival  of  another  guest  for  whom  Steptoe 
and  his  party  were  evidently  waiting.  He 
was  a  short,  stout  man,  whose  heavy  red 
beard  was  trimmed  a  little  more  carefully 
than  when  he  was  first  known  to  Steptoe 
as  Alky  Hall,  the  drunkard  of  Heavy  Tree 
Hill.  His  dress,  too,  exhibited  a  marked 
improvement  in  quality  and  style,  although 
still  characterized  in  the  waist  and  chest  by 
the  unbuttoned  freedom  of  portly  and  slov- 
enly middle  age.  Civilization  had  restricted 
his  potations  or  limited  them  to  certain  fes- 
tivals known  as  "  sprees,"  and  his  face  was 
less  puffy  and  sodden.  But  with  the  acces- 
sion of  sobriety  he  had  lost  his  good  humor, 
and  had  the  irritability  and  intolerance  of 
virtuous  restraint. 

"  Ye  need  n't  ladle  out  any  of  your  forty- 
rod  whiskey  to  me,"  he  said  querulously  to 
Steptoe,  as  he  filed  out  with  the  rest  of  the 
party  through  the  bar-room  into  the  adjacent 
apartment.  "  I  want  to  keep  my  head  level 
till  our  business  is  over,  and  I  reckon  it 
would  n't  hurt  you  and  your  gang  to  do  the 


246  THESE  PAETNEES. 

same.  They  're  less  likely  to  blab ;  and 
there  are  few  doors  that  whiskey  won't  un- 
lock," he  added,  as  Steptoe  turned  the  key 
in  the  door  after  the  party  had  entered. 

The  room  had  evidently  been  used  for 
meetings  of  directors  or  political  caucuses, 
and  was  roughly  furnished  with  notched 
and  whittled  armchairs  and  a  single  long 
deal  table,  on  which  were  ink  and  pens. 
The  men  sat  down  around  it  with  a  half-em- 
barrassed, half-contemptuous  attitude  of 
formality,  their  bent  brows  and  isolated 
looks  showing  little  community  of  sentiment 
and  scarcely  an  attempt  to  veil  that  indi- 
vidual selfishness  that  was  prominent.  Still 
less  was  there  any  essay  of  companionship 
or  sympathy  in  the  manner  of  Steptoe 
as  he  suddenly  rapped  on  the  table  with  his 
knuckles. 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  with  a  certain  de- 
liberation of  utterance,  as  if  he  enjoyed  his 
own  coarse  directness,  "  I  reckon  you  all 
have  a  sort  of  general  idea  what  you  were 
picked  up  for,  or  you  would  n't  be  here. 
But  you  may  or  may  not  know  that  for  the 
present  you  are  honest,  hard-working  miners, 
—  the  backbone  of  the  State  of  Californy, 


THEEE  PARTNEES.  247 

. —  and  that  you  have  formed  yourselves  into 
a  company  called  the  '  Blue  Jay,'  and  you  've 
settled  yourselves  on  the  Bar  below  Heavy 
Tree  Hill,  on  a  deserted  claim  of  the  Mar- 
shall Brothers,  not  half  a  mile  from  where 
the  big  strike  was  made  five  years  ago. 
That 's  what  you  are,  gentlemen  ;  that 's 
what  you  '11  continue  to  be  until  the  job 's 
finished ;  and,"  he  added,  with  a  sudden 
dominance  that  they  all  felt,  "  the  man  who 
forgets  it  will  have  to  reckon  with  me. 
Now,"  he  continued,  resuming  his  former 
ironical  manner,  "now,  what  are  the  cold 
facts  of  the  case?  The  Marshalls  worked 
this  claim  ever  since  '49,  and  never  got  any- 
thing out  of  it ;  then  they  dropped  off  or 
died  out,  leaving  only  one  brother,  Tom 
Marshall,  to  work  what  was  left  of  it.  Well, 
a  few  days  ago  he  found  indications  of  a  big 
lead  in  the  rock,  and  instead  of  rushin'  out 
and  yellin'  like  an  honest  man,  and  callin' 
in  the  boys  to  drink,  he  sneaks  off  to  'Frisco, 
and  goes  to  the  bank  to  get  'em  to  take  a 
hand  in  it.  Well,  you  know,  when  Jim 
Stacy  takes  a  hand  in  anything,  it 's  both 
hands,  and  the  bank  would  n't  see  it  until 
he  promised  to  guarantee  possession  of  the 


248  THREE  PARTNERS. 

whole  abandoned  claim,  —  '  dips,  spurs,  and 
angles,'  —  and  let  them  work  the  whole 
thing,  which  the  d — d  fool  did,  and  the 
bank  agreed  to  send  an  expert  down  there 
to-morrow  to  report.  But  while  he  was 
away  some  one  on  our  side,  who  was  an 
expert  also,  got  wind  of  it,  and  made  an  ex- 
amination all  by  himself,  and  found  it  was 
a  vein  sure  enough  and  a  big  thing,  and 
some  one  else  on  our  side  found  out,  too,  all 
that  Marshall  had  promised  the  bank  and 
what  the  bank  had  promised  him.  Now, 
gentlemen,  when  the  bank  sends  down  that 
expert  to-morrow  I  expect  that  he  will  find 
you  in  possession  of  every  part  of  the  de- 
serted claim  except  the  spot  where  Tom  is 
still  working." 

"And  what  good  is  that  to  us?"  asked 
one  of  the  men  contemptuously. 

"  Good  ?  "  repeated  Steptoe  harshly. 
"  Well,  if  you  're  not  as  d — d  a  fool  as  Mar- 
shall, you  '11  see  that  if  he  has  struck  a  lead 
or  vein  it 's  bound  to  run  across  our  claims, 
and  what 's  to  keep  us  from  sinking  for  it 
as  long  as  Marshall  has  n't  worked  the  other 
claims  for  years  nor  preempted  them  for 
this  lead  ?  " 


THESE  PARTNEES.  249 

"  What  '11  keep  him  from  preempting 
now?" 

"  Our  possession." 

"  But  if  he  can  prove  that  the  brothers 
left  their  claims  to  him  to  keep,  he  '11  just 
send  the  sheriff  and  his  posse  down  upon 
us,"  persisted  the  first  speaker. 

"  It  will  take  him  three  months  to  do  that 
by  law,  and  the  sheriff  and  his  posse  can't 
do  it  before  as  long  as  we  're  in  peaceable 
possession  of  it.  And  by  the  time  that 
expert  and  Marshall  return  they  '11  find  us 
in  peaceful  possession,  unless  we  're  such 
blasted  fools  as  to  stay  talking  about  it 
here!" 

"  But  what 's  to  prevent  Marshall  from 
getting  a  gang  of  his  own  to  drive  us  off  ?  " 

"  Now  your  talkin'  and  not  yelpin',"  said 
Steptoe,  with  slow  insolence.  "  D — d  if  I 
did  n't  begin  to  think  you  kalkilated  I  was 
goin'  to  employ  you  as  lawyers  !  Nothing 
is  to  prevent  him  from  gettin'  up  his  gang, 
and  we  hope  he  '11  do  it,  for  you  see  it  puts 
us  both  on  the  same  level  before  the  law,  for 
we  're  both  breakin'  it.  And  we  kalkilate 
that  we  're  as  good  as  any  roughs  they  can 
pick  up  at  Heavy  Tree." 


250  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  I  reckon  !  "  "  Ye  can  count  us  in  !  " 
said  half  a  dozen  voices  eagerly. 

"  But  what 's  the  job  goin'  to  pay  us  ?  " 
persisted  a  Sydney  man.  "  An'  arter  we  've 
beat  off  this  other  gang,  are  we  going  to 
scrub  along  on  grub  wages  until  we  're 
yanked  out  by  process-sarvers  three  months 
later  ?  If  that 's  the  ticket  I  'm  not  in  it. 
I  are  n't  no  b — y  quartz  miner." 

"  We  ain't  going  to  do  no  more  mining 
there  than  the  bank,"  said  Steptoe  fiercely. 
"  And  the  bank  ain't  going  to  wait  no  three 
months  for  the  end  of  the  lawsuit.  They  '11 
float  the  stock  of  that  mine  for  a  couple  of 
millions,  and  get  out  of  it  with  a  million 
before  a  month.  And  they  '11  have  to  buy 
us  off  to  do  that.  What  they  '11  pay  will 
depend  upon  the  lead ;  but  we  don't  move 
off  those  claims  for  less  than  five  thousand 
dollars,  which  will  be  two  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  to  each  man.  But,"  said  Steptoe 
in  a  lower  but  perfectly  distinct  voice,  "  if 
there  should  be  a  row,  —  and  they  begin  it, 
—  and  in  the  scuffle  Tom  Marshall,  their 
only  witness,  should  happen  to  get  in  the 
way  of  a  revolver  or  have  his  head  caved  in, 
there  might  be  some  difficulty  in  their  hold- 


THREE  PARTNERS,  251 

in'  any  of  the  mine  against  honest,  hard- 
working miners  in  possession.  You  hear 
me?" 

There  was  a  breathless  silence  for  the 
moment,  and  a  slight  movement  of  the  men 
in  their  chairs,  but  never  in  fear  or  pro- 
test. Every  one  had  heard  the  speaker  dis- 
tinctly, and  every  man  distinctly  understood 
him.  Some  of  them  were  criminals,  one  or 
two  had  already  the  stain  of  blood  on  their 
hands ;  but  even  the  most  timid,  who  at 
other  times  might  have  shrunk  from  sug- 
gested assassination,  saw  in  the  speaker's 
words  only  the  fair  removal  of  a  natural 
enemy. 

"  All  right,  boys.  I  'm  ready  to  wade  in 
at  once.  Why  ain't  we  on  the  road  now  ? 
We  might  have  been  but  for  foolin'  our 
time  away  on  that  man  Van  Loo." 

"  Van  Loo  !  "  repeated  Hall  eagerly,  — 
"  Van  Loo  !  Was  he  here  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Steptoe  shortly,  administer- 
ing a  kick  under  the  table  to  Hall,  as  he 
had  no  wish  to  revive  the  previous  irrita- 
bility of  his  comrades.  "  He  's  gone,  but," 
turning  to  the  others,  "  you  'd  have  had  to 
wait  for  Mr.  Hall's  arrival,  anyhow.  And 


252  THREE  PARTNERS. 

now  you've  got  your  order  you  can  start. 
Go  in  two  parties  by  different  roads,  and 
meet  on  the  other  side  of  the  hotel  at  Hy- 
mettus.  I  '11  be  there  before  you.  Pick 
up  some  shovels  and  drills  as  you  go ;  re- 
member you're  honest  miners,  but  don't 
forget  your  shootin'-irons  for  all  that.  Now 
scatter." 

It  was  well  that  they  did,  vacating  the 
room  more  cheerfully  and  sympathetically 
than  they  had  entered  it,  or  Hall's  manifest 
disturbance  over  Van  Loo's  visit  would  have 
been  noticed.  When  the  last  man  had  dis- 
appeared Hall  turned  quickly  to  Steptoe. 
"Well,  what  did  he  say?  Where  has  he 
gone  ?  " 

"  Don't  know,"  said  Steptoe,  with  uneasy 
curtness.  "  He  was  running  away  with  a 
woman  —  well,  Mrs.  Barker,  if  you  want  to 
know,"  he  added,  with  rising  anger,  "  the 
wife  of  one  of  those  cursed  partners.  Jack 
Hamlin  was  here,  and  was  jockeying  to  stop 
him,  and  interfered.  But  what  the  devil 
has  that  job  to  do  with  our  job  ?  "  He  was 
losing  his  temper ;  everything  seemed  to 
turn  upon  this  infernal  Van  Loo ! 

"  He   was  n't   running   away   with  Mrs. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  253 

Barker,"  gasped  Hall, —  "it  was  with  her 
money !  and  the  fear  of  being  connected 
with  the  Wheat  Trust  swindle  which  he 
organized,  and  with  our  money  which  I  lent 
him  for  the  same  purpose.  And  he  knows 
all  about  that  job,  for  I  wanted  to  get  him 
to  go  into  it  with  us.  Your  name  and  mine 
ain't  any  too  sweet-smelling  for  the  bank, 
and  we  ought  to  have  a  middleman  who 
knows  business  to  arrange  with  them.  The 
bank  dare  n't  object  to  him,  for  they  've  em- 
ployed him  in  even  shadier  transactions  than 
this  when  they  didn't  wish  to  appear.  / 
knew  he  was  in  difficulties  along  with  Mrs. 
Barker's  speculations,  but  I  never  thought 
him  up  to  this.  And,"  he  added,  with  sud- 
den desperation,  "  you  trusted  him,  too." 

In  an  instant  Steptoe  caught  the  fright- 
ened man  by  the  shoulders  and  was  bearing 
him  down  on  the  table.  "  Are  you  a  traitor, 
a  liar,  or  a  besotted  fool?  "  he  said  hoarsely. 
"  Speak.  When  and  where  did  I  trust 
him?" 

"  You  said  in  your  note  —  I  was  —  to  — 
help  him,"  gasped  Hall. 

"My  note,"  repeated  Steptoe,  releasing 
Hall  with  astonished  eyes. 


254  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"Yes,"  said  Hall,  tremblingly  searching 
in  his  vest  pocket.  "  I  brought  it  with  me. 
It  is  n't  much  of  a  note,  but  there  's  your 
signature  plain  enough." 

He  handed  Steptoe  a  torn  piece  of  paper 
folded  in  a  three-cornered  shape.  Steptoe 
opened  it.  He  instantly  recognized  the 
paper  on  which  he  had  written  his  name 
and  sent  up  to  his  wife  at  the  Boomville 
Hotel.  But,  added  to  it,  in  apparently  the 
same  hand,  in  smaller  characters,  were  the 
words,  "  Help  Van  Loo  all  you  can." 

The  blood  rushed  into  his  face.  But  he 
quickly  collected  himself,  and  said  hurriedly, 
"All  right,  I  had  forgotten  it.  Let  the 
d — d  sneak  go.  We  've  got  what 's  a  thou- 
sand times  better  in  this  claim  at  Marshall's, 
and  it 's  well  that  he  is  n't  in  it  to  scoop  the 
lion's  share.  Only  we  must  not  waste  time 
getting  there  now.  You  go  there  first,  and 
at  once,  and  set  those  rascals  to  work.  I  '11 
follow  you  before  Marshall  conies  up.  Get ; 
I  '11  settle  up  here." 

His  face  darkened  once  more  as  Hall  hur- 
ried away,  leaving  him  alone.  He  drew  out 
the  piece  of  paper  from  his  pocket  and  stared 
at  it  again.  Yes;  it  was  the  one  he  had 


THESE  PARTNERS.  255 

sent  to  his  wife.  How  did  Van  Loo  get 
hold  of  it  ?  Was  he  at  the  hotel  that  night  ? 
Had  he  picked  it  up  in  the  hall  or  passage 
when  the  servant  dropped  it  ?  When  Hall 
handed  him  the  paper  and  he  first  recognized 
it  a  fiendish  thought,  followed  by  a  spasm  of 
more  fiendish  rage,  had  sent  the  blood  to  his 
face.  But  his  crude  common  sense  quickly 
dismissed  that  suggestion  of  his  wife's  com- 
plicity with  Van  Loo.  But  had  she  seen 
him  passing  through  the  hotel  that  night, 
and  had  sought  to  draw  from  him  some 
knowledge  of  his  early  intercourse  with  the 
child,  and  confessed  everything,  and  even 
produced  the  paper  with  his  signature  as  a 
proof  of  identity?  W*>men  had  been  known 
to  do  such  desperate  things.  Perhaps  she 
disbelieved  her  son's  aversion  to  her,  and 
was  trying  to  sound  Van  Loo.  As  for  the 
forged  words  by  Van  Loo,  and  the  use  he 
had  put  them  to,  he  cared  little.  He  believed 
the  man  was  capable  of  forgery ;  indeed,  he 
suddenly  remembered  that  in  the  old  days 
his  son  had  spoken  innocently,  but  admir- 
ingly, of  Van  Loo's  wonderful  chirographi- 
cal  powers  and  his  faculty  of  imitating  the 
writings  of  others,  and  how  he  had  evei* 


256  THREE  PARTNERS. 

offered  to  teach  him.  A  new  and  exasper- 
ating thought  came  into  his  feverish  con- 
sciousness. What  if  Van  Loo,  in  teaching 
the  boy,  had  even  made  use  of  him  as  an 
innocent  accomplice  to  cover  up  his  own 
tricks !  The  suggestion  was  no  question  of 
moral  ethics  to  Steptoe,  nor  of  his  son's  pos- 
sible contamination,  although  since  the  night 
of  the  big  strike  he  had  held  different  views ; 
it  was  simply  a  fierce,  selfish  jealousy  that 
another  might  have  profited  by  the  lad's 
helplessness  and  inexperience.  He  had  been 
tormented  by  this  jealousy  before  in  his  son's 
liking  for  Van  Loo.  He  had  at  first  encour- 
aged his  admiration  and  imitative  regard  for 
this  smooth  swindler's  graces  and  accom- 
plishments, which,  though  he  scorned  them 
himself,  he  was,  after  the  common  parental 
infatuation,  willing  that  the  boy  should  pro- 
fit by.  Incapable,  through  his  own  con- 
sciousness, of  distinguishing  between  Van 
Loo's  superficial  polish  and  the  true  breed- 
ing of  a  gentleman,  he  had  only  looked  upon 
it  as  an  equipment  for  his  son  which  might 
be  serviceable  to  himself.  He  had  told  his 
wife  the  truth  when  he  informed  her  of  Van 
Loo's  fears  of  being  reminded  of  their  for. 


THESE  PARTNERS.  257 

mer  intimacy ;  but  he  had  not  told  her  how 
its  discontinuance  after  they  had  left  Heavy 
Tree  Hill  had  affected  her  son,  and  how  he 
still  cherished  his  old  admiration  for  that 
specious  rascal.  Nor  had  he  told  her  how 
this  had  stung  him,  through  his  own  selfish 
greed  of  the  boy's  affection.  Yet  now  that 
it  was  possible  that  she  had  met  Van  Loo 
that  evening,  she  might  have  become  aware 
of  Van  Loo's  power  over  her  child.  How 
she  would  exult,  for  all  her  pretended  hatred 
of  Van  Loo !  How,  perhaps,  they  had 
plotted  together !  How  Van  Loo  might 
have  become  aware  of  the  place  where  his 
son  was  kept,  and  have  been  bribed  by  the 
mother  to  tell  her  !  He  stopped  in  a  whirl 
of  giddy  fancies.  His  strong  common  sense 
in  all  other  things  had  been  hitherto  proof 
against  such  idle  dreams  or  suggestions  ;  but 
the  very  strength  of  his  parental  love  and 
jealousy  had  awakened  in  him  at  last  the 
terrors  of  imagination. 

His  first  impulse  had  been  to  seek  his 
wife,  regardless  of  discovery  or  consequences, 
at  Hyinettus,  where  she  had  said  she  was 
going.  It  was  on  his  way  to  the  rendezvous 
at  Marshall's  claim.  But  this  he  as  instantly 


258  THREE  PARTNERS. 

set  aside.  It  was  his  son  he  must  find  ;  she 
might  not  confess,  or  might  deceive  him  — 
the  boy  would  not;  and  if  his  fears  were 
correct,  she  could  be  arraigned  afterwards. 
It  was  possible  for  him  to  reach  the  little 
Mission  church  and  school,  secluded  in  a 
remote  valley  by  the  old  Franciscan  fathers, 
where  he  had  placed  the  boy  for  the  last  few 
years  unknown  to  his  wife.  It  would  be  a 
long  ride,  but  he  could  still  reach  Heavy  Tree 
Hill  afterwards  before  Marshall  and  the  ex- 
pert arrived.  And  he  had  a  feeling  he  had 
never  felt  before  on  the  eve  of  a  desperate 
adventure,  —  that  he  must  see  the  boy  first. 
He  remembered  how  the  child  had  often 
accompanied  him  in  his  flight,  and  how  he 
had  gained  strength,  and,  it  seemed  to  him, 
a  kind  of  luck,  from  the  touch  of  that  small 
hand  in  his.  Surely  it  was  necessary  now 
that  at  least  his  mind  should  be  at  rest  re- 
garding him  on  the  eve  of  an  affair  of  this 
moment.  Perhaps  he  might  never  see  him 
again.  At  any  other  time,  and  under  the 
influence  of  any  other  emotion,  he  would  have 
scorned  such  a  sentimentalism  —  he  who 
had  never  troubled  himself  either  with  pre- 
paration for  the  future  or  consideration  for 


THREE  PARTNERS.  259 

the  past.  But  at  that  moment  he  felt  both. 
He  drew  a  long  breath.  He  could  catch  the 
next  train  to  the  Three  Boulders  and  ride 
thence  to  San  Felipe.  He  hurriedly  left  the 
room,  settled  with  the  landlord,  and  galloped 
to  the  station.  By  the  irony  of  circum 
stances  the  only  horse  available  for  that  pur- 
pose was  Mr.  Hamlin's  own. 

By  two  o'clock  he  was  at  the  Three 
Boulders,  where  he  got  a  fast  horse  and 
galloped  into  San  Felipe  by  four.  As  he 
descended  the  last  slope  through  the  fast- 
nesses of  pines  towards  the  little  valley 
overlooked  in  its  remoteness  and  purely  pas- 
toral simplicity  by  tha  gold-seeking  immi- 
grants, —  its  seclusion  as  one  of  the  furthest 
northern  Californian  missions  still  preserved 
through  its  insignificance  and  the  efforts  of 
the  remaining  Brotherhood,  who  used  it  as 
an  infirmary  and  a  school  for  the  few  re- 
maining Spanish  families,  —  he  remembered 
how  he  once  blundered  upon  it  with  the  boy 
while  hotly  pursued  by  a  hue  and  cry  from 
one  of  the  larger  towns,  and  how  he  found 
sanctuary  there.  He  remembered  how,  when 
the  pursuit  was  over,  he  had  placed  the  boy 
there  under  the  padre's  charge.  He  had 


260  THREE  PARTNERS. 

lied  to  his  wife  regarding  the  whereabouts  of 
her  son,  but  he  had  spoken  truly  regarding 
his  free  expenditure  for  the  boy's  mainte- 
nance, and  the  good  fathers  had  accepted, 
equally  for  the  child's  sake  as  for  the 
Church's  sake,  the  generous  "  restitution  " 
which  this  coarse,  powerful,  ruffianly  look- 
ing father  was  apparently  seeking  to  make. 
He  was  quite  aware  of  it  at  the  tune,  and 
had  equally  accepted  it  with  grim  cynicism ; 
but  it  now  came  back  to  him  with  a  new  and 
smarting  significance.  Might  they,  too,  not 
succeed  in  weaning  the  boy's  affection  from 
him,  or  if  the  mother  had  interfered,  would 
they  not  side  with  her  in  claiming  an  equal 
right  ?  He  had  sometimes  laughed  to  him- 
self over  the  security  of  this  hiding-place,  so 
unknown  and  so  unlikely  to  be  discovered 
by  her,  yet  within  easy  reach  of  her  friends 
and  his  enemies ;  he  now  ground  his  teeth 
over  the  mistake  which  his  doting  desire  to 
keep  his  son  accessible  to  him  had  caused 
him  to  make.  He  put  spurs  to  his  horse, 
dashed  down  the  little,  narrow,  ill-paved 
street,  through  the  deserted  plaza,  and  pulled 
up  in  a  cloud  of  dust  before  the  only  re- 
maining tower,  with  its  cracked  belfry,  of 


THREE  PARTNERS.  261 

the  half-ruined  Mission  church.  A  new 
dormitory  and  school-building  had  been  ex- 
tended from  its  walls,  but  in  a  subdued,  har- 
monious, modest  way,  quite  unlike  the  usual 
glaring'white-piue  glories  of  provincial  towns. 
Steptoe  laughed  to  himself  bitterly.  Some 
of  his  money  had  gone  in  it. 

He  seized  the  horsehair  rope  dangling 
from  a  bell  by  the  wall  and  rang  it  sharply. 
A  soft-footed  priest  appeared,  —  Father  Do- 
minico.  "  Eddy  Horncastle  ?  Ah  !  yes. 
Eddy,  dear  child,  is  gone." 

"  Gone  !  "  shouted  Steptoe  in  a  voice  that 
startled  the  padre.  "  Where  ?  When  ? 
With  whom  ?  " 

**  Pardon,  seilor,  but  for  a  time  —  only  a 
pasear  to  the  next  village.  It  is  his  saint's 
day  —  he  has  half-holiday.  He  is  a  good 
boy.  It  is  a  little  pleasure  for  him  and  for 
us." 

"  Oh ! "  said  Steptoe,  softened  into  a 
rough  apology.  "  I  forgot.  All  right. 
Has  he  had  any  visitors  lately  —  lady,  for 
instance  ?  " 

Father  Dominico  cast  a  look  half  of 
fright,  half  of  reproval  upon  his  guest. 

**  A  lady  Jiere  !  " 


262  THREE  PARTNERS. 

In  his  relief  Steptoe  burst  into  a  coarse 
laugh.  "  Of  course  ;  you  see  I  forgot  that, 
too.  I  was  thinking  of  one  of  his  woman 
folks,  you  know  —  relatives  —  aunts.  Was 
there  any  other  visitor?" 

"  Only  one.  Ah !  we  know  the  senor's 
rules  regarding  his  son." 

"  One  ?  "  repeated  Steptoe.  "  Who  was 
it?" 

"  Oh,  quite  an  hidalgo  —  an  old  friend  of 
the  child's  —  most  polite,  most  accomplished, 
fluent  in  Spanish,  perfect  in  deportment. 
The  Senor  Horncastle  surely  could  find 
nothing  to  object  to.  Father  Pedro  was 
charmed  with  him.  A  man  of  affairs,  and 
yet  a  good  Catholic,  too.  It  was  a  Senor 
Van  Loo  —  Don  Paul  the  boy  called  him, 
and  they  talked  of  the  boy's  studies  in  the 
old  days  as  if  —  indeed,  but  for  the  stranger 
being  a  caballero  and  man  of  the  world  — 
as  if  he  had  been  his  teacher." 

It  was  a  proof  of  the  intensity  of  the  fa- 
ther's feelings  that  they  had  passed  beyond 
the  power  of  his  usual  coarse,  brutal  expres- 
sion, and  he  only  stared  at  the  priest  with  a 
dull  red  face  in  which  the  blood  seemed  to 
have  stagnated.  Presently  he  said  thickly, 
"  When  did  he  come  ?  " 


THESE  PARTNERS.  263 

"  A  few  days  ago." 

«*  Which  way  did  Eddy  go  ?  " 

"  To  Brown's  Mills,  scarcely  a  league 
away.  He  will  be  here  —  even  now  —  on 
the  instant.  But  the  senor  will  come  into 
the  refectory  and  take  some  of  the  old  Mis- 
sion wine  from  the  Catalan  grape,  planted 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  until  the 
dear  child  returns.  He  will  be  so  happy." 

"  Ne !  I  'm  in  a  hurry.  I  will  go  on 
and  meet  him."  He  took  off  his  hat, 
mopped  his  crisp,  wet  hair  with  his  handker- 
chief, and  in  a  thick,  slow,  impeded  voice, 
more  suggestive  than  the  outburst  he  re- 
strained, said,  "  And  as  long  as  my  son 
remains  here  that  man,  Van  Loo,  must  not 
pass  this  gate,  speak  to  him,  or  even  see 
him.  You  hear  me  ?  See  to  it,  you  and 
all  the  others.  See  to  it,  I  say,  or  "  —  He 
stopped  abruptly,  clapped  his  hat  on  the 
swollen  veins  of  his  forehead,  turned  quickly, 
passed  out  without  another  word  through 
the  archway  into  the  road,  and  before  the 
good  priest  could  cross  himself  or  recover 
from  his  astonishment  the  thud  of  his 
horse's  hoofs  came  from  the  dusty  road. 

It  was  ten  minutes  before  his  face  resumed 


264  THREE  PARTNERS. 

its  usual  color.  But  in  that  ten  minutes,  as 
if  some  of  the  struggle  of  his  rider  had 
passed  into  him,  his  horse  was  sweating 
with  exhaustion  and  fear.  For  in  that  ten 
minutes,  in  this  new  imagination  with  which 
he  was  cursed,  he  had  killed  both  Van  Loo 
and  his  son,  and  burned  the  refectory  over 
the  heads  of  the  treacherous  priests.  Then, 
quite  himself  again,  a  voice  came  to  him 
from  the  rocky  trail  above  the  road  with  the 
hail  of  "  Father  !  "  He  started  quickly  as 
a  lad  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  came  bounding 
down  the  hillside,  and  ran  towards  him. 

"  You  passed  me  and  I  called  to  you,  but 
you  did  not  seem  to  hear,"  said  the  boy 
breathlessly.  "Then  I  ran  after  you. 
Have  you  been  to  the  Mission  ?  " 

Steptoe  looked  at  him  quite  as  breath- 
lessly, but  from  a  deeper  emotion.  He  was, 
even  at  first  sight,  a  handsome  lad,  glowing 
with  youth  and  the  excitement  of  his  run, 
and,  as  the  father  looked  at  him,  he  could 
see  the  likeness  to  his  mother  in  his  clear- 
cut  features,  and  even  a  resemblance  to  him- 
self in  his  square,  compact  chest  and  shoul- 
ders and  crisp,  black  curls.  A  thrill  of 
purely  animal  paternity  passed  over  him, 


THESE  PARTNERS.  265 

the  fierce  joy  of  his  flesh  over  his  own  flesh ! 
His  own  son,  by  God !  They  could  not  take 
that  from  him;  they  might  plot,  swindle, 
fawn,  cheat,  lie,  and  steal  away  his  affec- 
tions, but  there  he  was,  plain  to  all  eyes, 
his  own  son,  his  very  son ! 

"Come  here,"  he  said  in  a  singular,  half- 
weary  and  half-protesting  voice,  which  the 
boy  instantly  recognized  as  his  father's  ac- 
cents of  affection. 

The  boy  hesitated  as  he  stood  on  the  edge 
of  the  road  and  pointed  with  mingled  mis- 
chief and  fastidiousness  to  the  depths  of 
impalpable  red  dust  that  lay  between  him 
and  the  horseman.  Steptoe  saw  that  he 
was  very  smartly  attired  in  holiday  guise, 
with  white  duck  trousers  and  patent  leather 
shoes,  and,  after  the  Spanish  fashion,  wore 
black  kid  gloves.  He  certainly  was  a  bit 
of  a  dandy,  as  he  had  said.  The  father's 
whole  face  changed  as  he  wheeled  and  came 
before  the  lad,  who  lifted  up  his  arms  expect- 
antly. They  had  often  ridden  together  on 
the  same  horse. 

"  No  rides  to-day  in  that  toggery,  Eddy," 
he  said  in  the  same  voice.  "  But  I  '11  get 
down  and  we  '11  go  and  sit  somewhere  under 


266  TIIEEE  PARTNERS. 

a  tree  and  have  some  talk.  I  've  got  a  bit 
of  a  job  that 's  hurrying  me,  and  I  can't 
waste  time." 

"Not  one  of  your  old  jobs,  father?  I 
thought  you  had  quite  given  that  up  ?  " 

The  boy  spoke  more  carelessly  than  re- 
proachfully, or  even  wonderingly  ;  yet,  as  he 
dismounted  and  tethered  his  horse,  Steptoe 
answered  evasively,  "  It  's  a  big  thing, 
sonny ;  maybe  we  '11  make  our  eternal  for- 
tune, and  then  we  '11  light  out  from  this 
hole  and  have  a  gay  time  elsewhere.  Come 
along." 

He  took  the  boy's  gloved  right  hand  in  his 
own  powerful  grasp,  and  together  they  clam- 
bered up  the  steep  hillside  to  a  rocky  ledge 
on  which  a  fallen  pine  from  above  had 
crashed,  snapped  itself  in  twain,  and  then 
left  its  withered  crown  to  hang  half  down 
the  slope,  while  the  other  half,  rested  on 
the  ledge.  On  this  they  sat,  looking  down 
upon  the  road  and  the  tethered  horse.  A 
gentle  breeze  moved  the  treetops  above  their 
heads,  and  the  westering  sun  played  hide- 
and-seek  with  the  shifting  shadows.  The 
boy's  face  was  quick  and  alert  with  all  that 
moved  round  him,  but  without  thought ,,  the 


THREE  PARTNERS.  267 

father's  face  was  heavy,  except  for  the  eyes 
that  were  fixed  upon  his  son. 

44  Van  Loo  came  to  the  Mission,"  he  said 
suddenly. 

The  boy's  eyes  glittered  quickly,  like  a 
steel  that  pierced  the  father's  heart.  "  Oh," 
he  said  simply,  "  then  it  was  the  padre  told 
you?" 

"  How  did  he  know  you  were  here  ? " 
asked  Steptoe. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  the  boy  quietly. 
44 1  think  he  said  something,  but  I  've  for- 
gotten it.  But  it  was  mighty  good  of  him 
to  come,  for  I  thought,  you  know,  that  he 
did  not  care  to  see  me  after  Heavy  Tree, 
and  that  he  'd  gone  back  on  us." 

44  What  did  he  tell  you  ?  "  continued  Step- 
toe.  "  Did  he  talk  of  me  or  of  your 
mother?" 

44  No,"  said  the  boy,  but  withou.  any  show 
of  interest  or  sympathy  ;  "  we  talked  mostly 
about  old  times." 

44  Tell  me  about  those  old  times,  Eddy. 
You  never  told  me  anything  about  them." 

The  boy,  momentarily  arrested  more  by 
something  in  the  tone  of  his  father's  voice 
—  a  weakness  he  had  never  noticed  before 


268  THREE  PARTNERS. 

—  than  by  any  suggestion  of  his  words, 
said  with  a  laugh,  "  Oh,  only  about  what  we 
used  to  do  when  I  was  very  little  and  used 
to  call  myself  his  4  little  brother,'  —  don't 
you  remember,  long  before  the  big  strike  on 
Heavy  Tree  ?  They  were  gay  times  we  had 
then." 

"  And  how  he  used  to  teach  you  to  imi- 
tate other  people's  handwriting  ?  "  said  Step- 
toe. 

"What  made  you  think  of  that,  pop?" 
said  the  boy,  with  a  slight  wonder  in  his 
eyes.  "  Why,  that 's  the  very  thing  we  did 
talk  about." 

"  But  you  did  n't  do  it  again  ;  you  ain't 
done  it  since,"  said  Steptoe  quickly. 

"  Lord !  no,"  said  the  boy  contemptu- 
ously. "  There  ain't  no  chance  now,  and 
there  would  n't  be  any  fun  in  it.  It  is  n't 
like  the  old  times  when  him  and  me  were 
all  alone,  and  we  used  to  write  letters  as 
coming  from  other  people  to  all  the  boys 
round  Heavy  Tree  and  the  Bar,  and  some- 
times as  far  as  Boomville,  to  get  them  to  do 
things,  and  they  'd  think  the  letters  were 
real,  and  they  'd  do  'em.  And  there  'd  be 
the  biggest  kind  of  a  row,  and  nobody  ever 
knew  who  did  it." 


THREE  PARTNERS.  269 

Steptoe  stared  at  tins  flesh  of  his  own 
flesh  half  in  relief,  half  in  frightened  admira- 
tion. Sitting  astride  the  log,  his  elbows  on 
his  knees  and  his  gloved  hands  supporting 
his  round  cheeks,  the  boy's  handsome  face 
became  illuminated  with  an  impish  devilry 
which  the  father  had  never  seen  before. 
With  dancing  eyes  he  went  on.  "  It  was  one 
of  those  very  games  we  played  so  long  ago 
that  he  wanted  to  see  me  about  and  wanted 
me  to  keep  mum  about,  for  some  of  the 
folks  that  he  played  it  on  were  around  here 
now.  It  was  a  game  we  got  off  on  one  of 
the  big  strike  partners  long  before  the  strike. 
I  '11  tell  you,  dad,  for  you  know  what  hap- 
pened afterwards,  and  you  '11  be  glad.  Well, 
that  partner  —  Demorest  —  was  a  kind  of 
silly,  you  remember  —  a  sort  of  Miss  Nancy- 
ish  fellow  —  always  gloomy  and  lovesick 
after  his  girl  in  the  States.  Well,  we  'd 
written  lots  of  letters  to  girls  from  their 
chaps  before,  and  got  lots  of  fun  out  of  it ; 
but  we  had  even  a  better  show  for  a  game 
here,  for  it  happened  that  Van  Loo  knew 
all  about  the  girl  —  things  that  even  the 
man's  own  partners  did  n't,  for  Van  Loo's 
mother  was  a  sort  of  a  friend  of  the  girl's 


270  THESE  PAETNEES. 

family,  and  traveled  about  with  her,  and  knew 
that  the  girl  was  spoony  over  this  Demorest, 
and  that  they  corresponded.  So,  knowing 
that  Van  Loo  was  employed  at  Heavy  Tree, 
she  wrote  to  him  to  find  out  all  about  De- 
morest and  how  to  stop  their  foolish  non- 
sense, for  the  girl's  parents  did  n't  want  her 
to  marry  a  broken-down  miner  like  him.  So 
we  thought  we  'd  do  it  our  own  way,  and 
write  a  letter  to  her  as  if  it  was  from  him, 
don't  you  see  ?  I  wanted  to  make  him  call 
her  awful  names,  and  say  that  he  hated  her, 
that  he  was  a  murderer  and  a  horse-thief, 
and  that  he  had  killed  a  policeman,  and  that 
he  was  thinking  of  becoming  a  Digger  Injin, 
and  having  a  Digger  squaw  for  a  wife,  which 
he  liked  better  than  her.  Lord !  dad,  you 
ought  to  have  seen  what  stuff  I  made  up." 
The  boy  burst  into  a  shrill,  half -feminine 
laugh,  and  Steptoe,  catching  the  infection, 
laughed  loudly  in  his  own  coarse,  brutal 
fashion. 

For  some  moments  they  sat  there  looking 
in  each  other's  faces,  shaking  with  sympa- 
thetic emotion,  the  father  forgetting  the  pur- 
pose of  his  coming  there,  his  rage  over  Van 
Loo's  visit,  and  even  the  rendezvous  to 


THREE  PARTNERS.  271 

which  his  horse  in  the  road  below  was  wait- 
ing to  bring  him  ;  the  son  forgetting  their 
retreat  from  Heavy  Tree  Hill  and  his  shame- 
ful vagabond  wanderings  with  that  father 
in  the  years  that  followed.  The  sinking  sun 
stared  blankly  in  their  faces  ;  the  protecting 
pines  above  them  moved  by  a  stronger  gust 
shook  a  few  cones  upon  them  ;  an  enormous 
crow  mockingly  repeated  the  father's  coarse 
laugh,  and  a  squirrel  scampered  away  from 
the  strangely  assorted  pair  as  Steptoe,  wip- 
ing his  eyes  and  forehead  with  his  pocket- 
handkerchief,  said :  — 

"  And  did  you  send  it  ?  " 

"  Oh !  Van  Loo  thought  it  too  strong. 
Said  that  those  sort  of  love-sick  fools  made 
more  fuss  over  little  things  than  they  did 
over  big  things,  and  he  sort  of  toned  it 
down,  and  fixed  it  up  himself.  But  it  told. 
For  there  were  never  any  more  letters  in 
the  post-office  in  her  handwriting,  and  there 
was  n't  any  posted  to  her  in  his." 

They  both  laughed  again,  and  then  Step- 
toe  rose.  "  I  must  be  getting  along,"  he 
said,  looking  curiously  at  the  boy.  "  I  've 
got  to  catch  a  train  at  Three  Boulders  Sta- 
tion." 


272  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  Three  Boulders  !  "  repeated  the  boy. 
"  I  'm  going  there,  too,  on  Friday,  to  meet 
Father  Cipriano." 

"  I  reckon  my  work  will  be  all  done  by 
Friday,"  said  Steptoe  musingly.  Standing 
thus,  holding  his  boy's  hand,  he  was  think- 
ing that  the  real  fight  at  Marshall's  would 
not  take  place  at  once,  for  it  might  take  a 
day  or  two  for  Marshall  to  gather  forces. 
But  he  only  pressed  his  son's  hand  gently. 

"  I  wish  you  would  sometimes  take  me 
with  you  as  you  used  to,"  said  the  boy  curi- 
ously. "  I  'm  bigger  now,  and  would  n't  be 
in  your  way." 

Steptoe  looked  at  the  boy  with  a  choking 
sense  of  satisfaction  and  pride.  But  he  said, 
"  No ; "  and  then  suddenly  with  simulated 
humor,  "  Don't  you  be  taken  in  by  any  let- 
ters from  me,  such  as  you  and  Van  Loo 
used  to  write.  You  hear  ?  " 

The  boy  laughed. 

"  And,"  continued  Steptoe,  "  if  anybody 
says  I  sent  for  you,  don't  you  believe  them." 

"  No,"  said  the  boy,  smiling. 

"  And  don't  you  even  believe  I  'm  dead 
till  you  see  me  so.  You  understand.  By 
the  way,  Father  Pedro  has  some  money  of 


THEEE  PARTNERS.  273 

mine  kept  for  you.  Now  hurry  back  to 
school  and  say  you  met  me,  but  that  I  was 
in  a  great  hurry.  I  reckon  I  may  have  been 
rather  rough  to  the  priests." 

They  had  reached  the  lower  road  again, 
and  Steptoe  silently  unhitched  his  horse. 
"  Good-by,"  he  said,  as  he  laid  his  hand  on 
the  boy's  arm. 

"  Good-by,  dad." 

He  mounted  his  horse  slowly.  "  Well," 
he  said  smilingly,  looking  down  the  road, 
"  you  ain't  got  anything  more  to  say  to  me, 
have  you?" 

"  No,  dad." 

"Nothin'  you  want?" 

«  Nothin',  dad." 

"  All  right.     Good-by." 

He  put  spurs  to  his  horse  and  cantered 
down  the  road  without  looking  back.  The 
boy  watched  him  with  idle  curiosity  until  he 
disappeared  from  sight,  and  then  went  on 
his  way,  whistling  and  striking  off  the  heads 
of  the  wayside  weeds  with  his  walking-stick. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  sun  arose  so  brightly  over  Hymettus 
on  the  morning  after  the  meeting  of  the 
three  partners  that  it  was  small  wonder  that 
Barker's  impressionable  nature  quickly  re- 
sponded to  it,  and,  without  awakening  the 
still  sleeping  child,  he  dressed  hurriedly,  and 
was  the  first  to  greet  it  in  the  keen  air  of 
the  slope  behind  the  hotel.  To  his  panthe- 
istic spirit  it  had  always  seemed  as  natural 
for  him  to  early  welcome  his  returning  bro- 
thers of  the  woods  and  hills  as  to  say  good- 
morning  to  his  fellow  mortals.  And,  in 
the  joy  of  seeing  Black  Spur  rising  again  to 
his  level  in  the  distance  before  him,  he 
doffed  his  hat  to  it  with  a  return  of  his  old 
boyish  habit,  laid  his  arm  caressingly  around 
the  great  girth  of  the  nearest  pine,  clapped 
his  hands  to  the  scampering  squirrels  in  his 
path,  and  whistled  to  the  dipping  jays.  In 
this  way  he  quite  forgot  the  more  serious 
affairs  of  the  preceding  night,  or,  rather,  saw 


THREE  PARTNERS.  275 

them  only  in  the  gilding  of  the  morning, 
until,  looking  up,  he  perceived  the  tall  figure 
of  Demorest  approaching  him ;  and  then  it 
struck  him  with  his  first  glance  at  his  old 
partner's  face  that  his  usual  suave,  gentle 
melancholy  had  been  succeeded  by  a  critical 
cynicism  of  look  and  a  restrained  bitterness 
of  accent.  Barker's  loyal  heart  smote  him 
for  his  own  selfishness  ;  Demorest  had  been 
hard  hit  by  the  discovery  of  the  forgery  and 
Stacy's  concern  in  it,  and  had  doubtless 
passed  a  restless  night,  while  he  (Barker) 
had  forgotten  all  about  it.  "  I  thought  of 
knocking  at  your  door,  as  I  passed,"  he  said, 
with  sympathetic  apology,  "  but  I  was  afraid 
I  might  disturb  you.  Is  n't  it  glorious  here  ? 
Quite  like  the  old  hill.  Look  at  that  lizard ; 
he  has  n't  moved  since  he  first  saw  me.  Do 
you  remember  the  one  who  used  to  steal  our 
sugar,  and  then  stiffen  himself  into  stone  on 
the  edge  of  the  bowl  until  he  looked  like  an 
ornamental  handle  to  it  ?  "  he  continued,  re- 
bounding again  into  spirits. 

"  Barker,"  said  Demorest  abruptly,  "  what 
sort  of  woman  is  this  Mrs.  Van  Loo,  whose 
rooms  I  occupy  ?  " 

"  Oh,"  said    Barker,  with  optimistic  in- 


276  THREE  PARTNERS. 

nocence,  "a  most  proper  woman,  old  chap. 
White-haired,  well-dressed,  with  a  little  for- 
eign accent  and  a  still  more  foreign  courtesy. 
Why,  you  don't  suppose  we  'd  "  — 

"  But  what  is  she  like  ?  "  said  Demorest 
impatiently. 

"  Well,"  said  Barker  thoughtfully,  "  she  's 
the  kind  of  woman  who  might  be  Van  Loo's 
mother,  I  suppose." 

"  You  mean  the  mother  of  a  forger  and  a 
swindler  ?  "  asked  Demorest  sharply. 

"  There  are  no  mothers  of  swindlers  and 
forgers,"  said  Barker  gravely,  "  in  the  way 
you  mean.  It 's  only  those  poor  devils,"  he 
said,  pointing,  nevertheless,  with  a  certain 
admiration  to  a  circling  sparrow-hawk  above 
him,  "  who  have  inherited  instincts.  What 
I  mean  is  that  she  might  be  Van  Loo's  mo- 
ther, because  he  did  n't  select  her." 

"  Where  did  she  come  from  ?  and  how 
long  has  she  been  here  ?  "  asked  Demorest. 

"  She  came  from  abroad,  I  believe.  And 
she  came  here  just  after  you  left.  Van  Loo, 
after  he  became  secretary  of  the  Ditch  Com- 
pany, sent  for  her  and  her  daughter  to  keep 
house  for  him.  But  you  '11  see  her  to-day  or 
to-morrow  probably,  when  she  returns.  I  '11 


THREE  PARTNERS.  277 

introduce  you ;  she  '11  be  rather  glad  to  meet 
some  one  from  abroad,  and  all  the  more  if 
he  happens  to  be  rich  and  distinguished,  and 
eligible  for  her  daughter."  He  stopped 
suddenly  in  his  smile,  remembering  Denio- 
rest's  lifelong  secret.  But  to  his  surprise 
his  companion's  face,  instead  of  darkening 
as  it  was  wont  to  do  at  any  such  allusion, 
brightened  suddenly  with  a  singular  excite- 
ment as  he  answered  dryly, "  Ah  well,  if  the 
girl  is  pretty,  who  knows !  " 

Indeed,  his  spirits  seemed  to  have  re- 
turned with  strange  vivacity  as  they  walked 
back  to  the  hotel,  and  he  asked  many  other 
questions  regarding  Mrs.  Van  Loo  and  her 
daughter,  and  particularly  if  the  daughter 
had  also  been  abroad.  When  they  reached 
the  veranda  they  found  a  few  early  risers 
eagerly  reading  the  Sacramento  papers, 
which  had  just  arrived,  or,  in  little  knots, 
discussing  the  news.  Indeed,  they  would 
probably  have  stopped  Barker  and  his  com- 
panion had  not  Barker,  anxious  to  relieve 
his  friend's  curiosity,  hurried  with  him  at 
once  to  the  manager's  office. 

"  Can  you  tell  me  exactly  when  you  ex- 
pect Mrs.  Van  Loo  to  return  ?  "  asked 
Barker  quickly. 


278  THREE  PARTNERS. 

The  manager  with  difficulty  detached 
himself  from  the  newspaper  which  he,  too, 
was  anxiously  perusing,  and  said,  with  a 
peculiar  smile,  "  Well  no !  she  was  to  return 
to-day,  but  if  you  're  wanting  to  keep  her 
rooms,  I  should  say  there  would  n't  be  any 
trouble  about  it,  as  she  '11  hardly  be  coming 
back  here  now.  She 's  rather  high  and 
mighty  in  style,  I  know,  and  a  determined 
sort  of  critter,  but  I  reckon  she  and  her 
daughter  would  n't  care  much  to  be  waltzing 
round  hi  public  after  what  has  happened." 

"  I  don't  understand  you,"  said  Demorest 
impatiently.  "  What  has  happened  ?  " 

"  Have  n't  you  heard  the  news  ?  "  said  the 
manager  in  surprise.  "  It 's  in  all  the  Sac- 
ramento papers.  Van  Loo  is  a  defaulter  — 
has  hypothecated  everything  he  had  and 
skedaddled." 

Barker  started.  He  was  not  thinking  of 
the  loss  of  his  wife's  money  —  only  of  her 
disappointment  and  mortification  over  it. 
Poor  girl!  Perhaps  she  was  also  worrying 
over  his  resentment,  —  as  if  she  did  not  know 
him  !  He  would  go  to  her  at  once  at  Boorn- 
ville.  Then  he  remembered  that  she  was 
coming  with  Mrs.  Horncastle,  and  might  be 


THREE  PARTNERS.  279 

already  on  her  way  here  by  rail  or  coach, 
and  he  would  miss  her.  Demorest  in  the 
meantime  had  seized  a  paper,  and  was  in- 
tently reading  it. 

"  There  's  bad  news,  too,  for  your  friend, 
jour  old  partner,"  said  the  manager  half  sym- 
pathetically, half  interrogatively.  "  There 
has  been  a  drop  out  in  everything  the  bank 
is  carrying,  and  everybody  is  unloading. 
Two  firms  failed  in  'Frisco  yesterday  that 
were  carrying  things  for  the  bank,  and  have 
thrown  everything  back  on  it.  There  was 
an  awful  panic  last  night,  and  they  say  none 
of  the  big  speculators  know  where  they 
stand.  Three  of  our  best  customers  in  the 
hotel  rushed  off  to  the  bay  this  morning, 
but  Stacy  himself  started  before  daylight, 
and  got  the  through  night  express  to  stop 
for  him  on  the  Divide  on  signal.  Shall  I 
send  any  telegrams  that  may  come  to  your 
room  ?  " 

Demorest  knew  that  the  manager  sus- 
pected him  of  being  interested  in  the  bank, 
and  understood  the  purport  of  the  question. 
He  answered,  with  calm  surprise,  that  he 
was  expecting  no  telegrams,  and  added, 
"But  if  Mrs.  Van  Loo  returns  I  beg  you 


280  THREE  PARTNERS. 

to  at  once  let  me  know,"  and  taking  Barker's 
arm  he  went  in  to  breakfast.  Seated  by 
themselves,  Demorest  looked  at  his  compan- 
ion. "  I  'm  afraid,  Barker  boy,  that  this 
thing  is  more  serious  to  Jim  than  we  ex- 
pected last  night,  or  than  he  cared  to  tell 
us.  And  you,  old  man,  I  fear  are  hurt  a 
little  by  Van  Loo's  flight.  He  had  some 
money  of  your  wife's,  had  n't  he  ?  " 

Barker,  who  knew  that  the  bulk  of  Demo- 
rest's  fortune  was  in  Stacy's  hands,  was 
touched  at  this  proof  of  his  unselfish  thought, 
and  answered  with  equal  unselfishness  that 
he  was  concerned  only  by  the  fear  of  Mrs. 
Barker's  disappointment.  "  Why,  Lord ! 
Phil,  whether  she 's  lost  or  saved  her  money 
it 's  nothing  to  me.  I  gave  it  to  her  to  do 
what  she  liked  with  it,  but  I  'm  afraid  she  '11 
be  worrying  over  what  /  think  of  it,  —  as 
if  she  did  not  know  me  !  And  I  'm  half  a 
mind,  if  it  were  not  for  missing  her,  to  go 
over  to  Boomville,  where  she  's  stopping." 

"  I  thought  you  said  she  was  in  San  Fran- 
cisco ? "  said  Demorest  abstractedly. 

Barker  colored.  "  Yes,"  he  answered 
quickly.  "But  I've  heard  since  that  she 
stopped  at  Boomville  on  the  way." 


THREE  PsLRTNERS.  281 

"  Then  don't  let  me  keep  you  here,"  re- 
turned Demorest.  "  For  if  Jim  telegraphs 
to  me  I  shall  start  for  San  Francisco  at 
once,  and  I  rather  think  he  will.  I  did  not 
like  to  say  so  before  those  panic-mongers 
outside  who  are  stampeding  everything ;  so 
run  along,  Barker  boy,  and  ease  your  mind 
about  the  wife.  We  may  have  other  things 
to  think  about  soon." 

Thus  adjured,  Barker  rose  from  his  half- 
finished  breakfast  and  slipped  away.  Yet 
he  was  not  quite  certain  what  to  do.  His 
wife  must  have  heard  the  news  at  Boom- 
ville  as  quickly  as  he  had,  and,  if  so,  would 
be  on  her  way  with  Mrs.  Horncastle ;  or 
she  might  be  waiting  for  him  —  knowing, 
too,  that  he  had  heard  the  news  —  in  fear 
and  trembling.  For  it  was  Barker's  custom 
to  endow  all  those  he  cared  for  with  his  own 
sensitiveness,  and  it  was  not  like  him  to 
reflect  that  the  woman  who  had  so  recklessly 
speculated  against  his  opinion  would  scarcely 
fear  his  reproaches  in  her  defeat.  In  the 
fullness  of  his  heart  he  telegraphed  to  her  in 
case  she  had  not  yet  left  Boomville :  "  All 
right.  Have  heard  news.  Understand  per- 
fectly. Don't  worry.  Come  to  me."  Then 


282  THREE  PARTNERS. 

he  left  the  hotel  by  the  stable  entrance  in 
order  to  evade  the  guests  who  had  congre- 
gated on  the  veranda,  and  made  his  way  to 
a  little  wooded  crest  which  he  knew  com- 
manded a  view  of  the  two  roads  from  Boom- 
ville.  Here  he  determined  to  wait  and  in- 
tercept her  before  she  reached  the  hotel. 
He  knew  that  many  of  the  guests  were 
aware  of  his  wife's  speculations  with  Van 
Loo,  and  that  he  was  her  broker.  He 
wished  to  spare  her  running  the  gauntlet  of 
their  curious  stares  and  comments  as  she 
drove  up  alone.  As  he  was  climbing  the 
slope  the  coach  from  Sacramento  dashed 
past  him  on  the  road  below,  but  he  knew 
that  it  had  changed  horses  at  Boomville  at 
four  o'clock,  and  that  his  tired  wife  would 
not  have  availed  herself  of  it  at  that  hour, 
particularly  as  she  could  not  have  yet  re- 
ceived the  fateful  news.  He  threw  himself 
under  a  large  pine,  and  watched  the  stage- 
coach disappear  as  it  swept  round  into  the 
courtyard  of  the  hotel. 

He  sat  there  for  some  moments  with  his 
eyes  bent  upon  the  two  forks  of  the  red 
road  that  diverged  below  him,  but  which 
appeared  to  become  whiter  and  more  daz- 


THEEE  PABTNEES.  283 

zling  as  he  searched  their  distance.  There 
was  nothing  to  be  seen  except  an  occasional 
puff  of  dust  which  eventually  revealed  a 
horseman  or  a  long  trailing  cloud  out  of 
which  a  solitary  mule,  one  of  a  pack-train  of 
six  or  eight,  would  momentarily  emerge  and 
be  lost  again.  Then  he  suddenly  heard  his 
name  called,  and,  looking  up,  saw  Mrs. 
Horncastle,  who  had  halted  a  few  paces 
from  him  between  two  columns  of  the  long- 
drawn  aisle  of  pines. 

In  that  mysterious  half-light  she  seemed 
such  a  beautiful  and  goddess-like  figure  that 
his  consciousness  at  first  was  unable  to  grasp 
anything  else.  She  was  always  wonderfully 
well  dressed,  but  the  warmth  and  seclusion 
of  this  mountain  morning  had  enabled  her 
to  wear  a  light  gown  of  some  delicate  fabric 
which  set  off  the  grace  of  her  figure,  and 
even  pardoned  the  rural  coquetry  of  a  silken 
sash  around  her  still  slender  waist.  An 
open  white  parasol  thrown  over  her  shoulder 
made  a  nimbus  for  her  charming  head  and 
the  thick  coils  of  hair  under  her  lace-edged 
hat.  He  had  never  seen  her  look  so  beauti- 
ful before.  And  that  thought  was  so  plainly 
in  his  frank  face  and  eyes  as  he  sprang  to 


284  THESE  PAETNEES. 

his  feet  that  it  brought  a  slight  rise  of  color 
to  her  own  cheek. 

"  I  saw  you  climbing  up  here  as  I  passed 
in  the  coach  a  few  minutes  ago,"  she  said, 
with  a  smile,  "  and  as  soon  as  I  had  shaken 
the  dust  off  I  followed  you." 

"  Where 's  Kitty  ?  "  he  stammered. 

The  color  faded  from  her  face  as  it  had 
come,  and  a  shade  of  something  like  reproach 
crept  into  her  dark  eyes.  And  whatever  it 
had  been  her  purpose  to  say,  or  however 
carefully  she  might  have  prepared  herself 
for  this  interview,  she  was  evidently  taken 
aback  by  the  sudden  directness  of  the  in- 
quiry. Barker  saw  this  as  quickly,  and  as 
quickly  referred  it  to  his  own  rudeness. 
His  whole  soul  rushed  in  apology  to  his  face 
as  he  said,  "  Oh,  forgive  me !  I  was  anxious 
about  Kitty ;  indeed,  I  had  thought  of  com- 
ing again  to  Boomville,  for  you  Ve  heard  the 
news,  of  course?  Van  Loo  is  a  defaulter, 
and  has  run  away  with  the  poor  child's 
money." 

Mrs.  Horncastle  had  heard  the  news  at 
the  hotel.  She  paused  a  moment  to  collect 
herself,  and  then  said  slowly  and  tentatively, 
with  a  watchful  intensity  in  her  eyes,  "  Mrs. 
Barker  went,  I  think,  to  the  Divide  "  — 


THREE  PARTNERS.  285 

But  she  was  instantly  interrupted  by  the 
eager  Barker.  "  I  see.  I  thought  of  that 
at  once.  She  went  directly  to  the  company's 
offices  to  see  if  she  could  save  anything  from 
the  wreck  before  she  saw  me.  It  was  like 
her,  poor  girl !  And  you  —  you,"  he  Went 
on  eagerly,  his  whole  face  beaming  with 
gratitude,  —  "  you,  out  of  your  goodness, 
came  here  to  tell  me."  He  held  out  both 
hands  and  took  hers  in  his. 

For  a  moment  Mrs.  Horncastle  was  speech- 
less and  vacillating.  She  had  often  noticed 
before  that  it  was  part  of  the  irony  of  the 
creation  of  such  a  simple  nature  as  Barker's 
that  he  was  not  only  open  to  deceit,  but 
absolutely  seemed  to  invite  it.  Instead  of 
making  others  franker,  people  were  inclined 
to  rebuke  his  credulity  by  restraint  and 
equivocation  on  their  own  part.  But  the 
evasion  thus  offered  to  her,  although  only 
temporary,  was  a  temptation  she  could  not 
resist.  And  it  prolonged  an  interview  that 
a  ruthless  revelation  of  the  truth  might  have 
shortened. 

"  She  did  not  tell  me  she  was  going 
there,"  she  replied  still  evasively  ;  "  and,  in- 
deed," she  added,  with  a  burst  of  candor 


286  THREE  PARTNERS. 

still  more  dangerous,  "  I  only  learned  it 
from  the  hotel  clerk  after  she  was  gone. 
But  I  want  to  talk  to  you  about  her  relations 
to  Van  Loo,"  she  said,  with  a  return  of  her 
former  intensity  of  gaze,  "  and  I  thought  we 
would  be  less  subject  to  interruption  here 
than  at  the  hotel.  Only  I  suppose  every- 
body knows  this  place,  and  any  of  those 
flirting  couples  are  likely  to  come  here.  Be- 
sides," she  added,  with  a  little  half-hysterical 
laugh  and  a  slight  shiver,  as  she  looked  up 
at  the  high  interlacing  boughs  above  her 
head,  "  it 's  as  public  as  the  aisles  of  a 
church,  and  really  one  feels  as  if  one  were 
*  speaking  out '  in  meeting.  Is  n't  there 
some  other  spot  a  little  more  secluded,  where 
we  could  sit  down,"  she  went  on,  as  she 
poked  her  parasol  into  the  usual  black  gun- 
powdery  deposit  of  earth  which  mingled 
with  the  carpet  of  pine-needles  beneath  her 
feet,  "  and  not  get  all  sticky  and  dirty  ?  " 

Barker's  eyes  sparkled.  "  I  know  every 
foot  of  this  hill,  Mrs.  Horncastle,"  he  said, 
"  and  if  you  will  follow  me  I  '11  take  you  to 
one  of  the  loveliest  nooks  you  ever  dreamed 
of.  It 's  an  old  Indian  spring  now  for- 
gotten, and  I  think  known  only  to  me  and 


THREE  PARTNERS.  287 

the  birds.  It 's  not  more  than  ten  minutes 
from  here  ;  only "  —  he  hesitated  as  he 
caught  sight  of  the  smart  French  bronze 
buckled  shoe  and  silken  ankle  which  Mrs. 
Horncastle's  gathering  up  of  her  dainty 
skirts  around  her  had  disclosed  —  "  it  may 
be  a  little  rough  and  dusty  going  to  your 
feet." 

But  Mrs.  Horncastle  pointed  out  that  she 
had  already  irretrievably  ruined  her  shoes 
and  stockings  in  climbing  up  to  him,  —  al- 
though Barker  could  really  distinguish  no 
diminution  of  their  freshness,  —  and  that 
she  might  as  well  go  on.  Whereat  they 
both  passed  down  the  long  aisle  of  slope  to 
a  little  hollow  of  manzanita,  which  again 
opened  to  a  view  of  Black  Spur,  but  left  the 
hotel  hidden. 

"  What  time  did  Kitty  go  ? "  began 
Barker  eagerly,  when  they  were  half  down 
the  slope. 

But  here  Mrs.  Horncastle's  foot  slipped 
upon  the  glassy  pine-needles,  and  not  only 
stopped  an  answer,  but  obliged  Barker  to 
give  all  his  attention  to  keep  his  companion 
from  falling  again  until  they  reached  the 
open.  Then  came  the  plunge  through  the 


288  THREE  PARTNERS. 

manzanita  thicket,  then  a  cool  wade  through 
waist-deep  ferns,  and  then  they  emerged, 
holding  each  other's  hand,  breathless  and 
panting  before  the  spring. 

It  did  not  belie  his  enthusiastic  descrip- 
tion. A  triangular  hollow,  niched  in  a  shelf 
of  the  mountain-side,  narrowed  to  a  point 
from  which  the  overflow  of  the  spring  per- 
colated through  a  fringe  of  alder,  to  fall  in 
what  seemed  from  the  valley  to  be  a  green 
furrow  down  the  whole  length  of  the  moun- 
tain-side. Overhung  by  pines  above,  which 
met  and  mingled  with  the  willows  that 
everywhere  fringed  it,  it  made  the  one  cool- 
ing shade  in  the  whole  basking  expanse 
of  the  mountain,  and  yet  was  penetrated 
throughout  by  the  intoxicating  spice  of  the 
heated  pines.  Flowering  reeds  and  long 
lush  grasses  drew  a  magic  circle  round  an 
open  bowl-like  pool  in  the  centre,  that  was 
always  replenished  to  the  slow  murmur  of 
an  unseen  rivulet  that  trickled  from  a  white- 
quartz  cavern  in  the  mountain-side  like  a 
vein  opened  in  its  flank.  Shadows  of  timid 
wings  crossed  it,  quick  rustlings  disturbed 
the  reeds,  but  nothing  more.  It  was  silent, 
but  breathing ;  it  was  hidden  to  everything 
but  the  sky  and  the  illimitable  distance. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  289 

They  threaded  their  way  around  it  on  the 
spongy  carpet,  covered  by  delicate  lace-like 
vines  that  seemed  to  caress  rather  than 
trammel  their  moving  feet,  until  they  reached 
an  open  space  before  the  pool.  It  was  cush- 
ioned and  matted  with  disintegrated  pine 
bark,  and  here  they  sat  down.  Mrs.  Horn- 
castle  furled  her  parasol  and  laid  it  aside  ; 
raised  both  hands  to  the  back  of  her  head 
and  took  two  hat-pins  out,  which  she  placed 
in  her  smiling  mouth ;  removed  her  hat, 
stuck  the  hat-pins  in  it,  and  handed  it  to 
Barker,  who  gently  placed  it  on  the  top  of 
a  tall  reed,  where  during  the  rest  of  that 
momentous  meeting  it  swung  and  drooped 
like  a  flower ;  removed  her  gloves  slowly ; 
drank  still  smilingly  and  gratefully  nearly 
a  wineglassful  of  the  water  which  Barker 
brought  her  in  the  green  twisted  chalice  of 
a  lily  leaf ;  looked  the  picture  of  happiness, 
and  then  burst  into  tears. 

Barker  was  astounded,  dismayed,  even 
terror-stricken.  Mrs.  Horncastle  crying! 
Mrs.  Horncastle,  the  imperious,  the  col- 
lected, the  coldly  critical,  the  cynical,  smiling 
woman  of  the  world,  actually  crying !  Other 
women  might  cry  —  Kitty  had  cried  often  — • 


290  THREE  PARTNERS. 

but  Mrs.  Horncastle !  Yet,  there  she  was, 
sobbing ;  actually  sobbing  like  a  schoolgirl, 
her  beautiful  shoulders  rising  and  falling 
with  her  grief ;  crying  unmistakably  through 
her  long  white  ringers,  through  a  lace  pocket- 
handkerchief  which  she  had  hurriedly  pro- 
duced and  shaken  from  behind  her  like  a 
conjurer's  trick ;  her  beautiful  eyes  a  thou- 
sand times  more  lustrous  for  the  sparkling 
beads  that  brimmed  her  lashes  and  welled 
over  like  the  pool  before  her. 

"  Don't  mind  me,"  she  murmured  behind 
her  handkerchief.  "It's  very  foolish,  I 
know.  I  was  nervous  —  worried,  I  suppose ; 
I  '11  be  better  in  a  moment.  Don't  notice 
me,  please." 

But  Barker  had  drawn  beside  her  and  was 
trying,  after  the  fashion  of  his  sex,  to  take 
her  handkerchief  away  in  apparently  the 
firm  belief  that  this  action  would  stop  her 
tears.  "  But  tell  me  what  it  is.  Do  Mrs. 
Horncastle,  please,"  he  pleaded  in  his  boy- 
ish fashion.  "  Is  it  anything  I  can  do  ? 
Only  say  the  word ;  only  tell  me  som&~ 
thing  !  " 

But  he  had  succeeded  in  partially  remov- 
ing the  handkerchief,  and  so  caught  a  glimpse 


THESE  PARTNERS.  291 

of  her  wet  eyes,  in  which  a  faint  smile 
struggled  out  like  sunshine  through  raiii. 
But  they  clouded  again,  although  she  did  n't 
cry,  and  her  breath  came  and  went  with  the 
action  of  a  sob,  and  her  hands  still  remained 
against  her  flushed  face. 

"I  was  only  going  to  talk  to  you  of 
Kitty  "  (sob)  —  "  but  I  suppose  I  'm  weak  " 
(sob)  —  "  and  such  a  fool  "  (sob)  "  and  I 
got  to  thinking  of  myself  and  my  own  sor- 
rows when  I  ought  to  be  thinking  only  of 
you  and  Kitty." 

"  Never  mind  Kitty,"  said  Barker  impul- 
sively. "  Tell  me  about  yourself  —  your 
own  sorrows.  I  am  a  brute  to  have  both- 
ered you  about  her  at  such  a  moment ;  and 
now  until  you  have  told  me  what  is  paining 
you  so  I  shall  not  let  you  speak  of  her." 
He  was  perfectly  sincere.  What  were 
Kitty's  possible  and  easy  tears  over  the  loss 
of  her  money  to  the  unknown  agony  that 
could  wrench  a  sob  from  a  woman  like  this  ? 
"  Dear  Mrs.  Horncastle,"  he  went  on  as 
breathlessly,  "  think  of  me  now  not  as 
Kitty's  husband,  but  as  your  true  friend. 
Yes,  as  your  best  and  truest  friend,  and 
speak  to  me  as  you  would  speak  to  him." 


292  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  You  will  be  my  friend  ?  "  she  said  sud- 
denly and  passionately,  grasping  his  hand, 
"  my  best  and  truest  friend  ?  and  if  I  tell 
you  all,  —  everything,  you  will  not  cast  me 
from  you  and  hate  me  ?  " 

Barker  felt  the  same  thrill  from  her  warm 
hand  slowly  possess  his  whole  being  as  it 
had  the  evening  before,  but  this  tune  he  was 
prepared  and  answered  the  grasp  and  her 
eyes  together  as  he  said  breathlessly,  "  I  will 
be  —  I  am  your  friend." 

She  withdrew  her  hand  and  passed  it  over 
her  eyes.  After  a  moment  she  caught  his 
hand  again,  and,  holding  it  tightly  as  if  she 
feared  he  might  fly  from  her,  bit  her  lip, 
and  then  slowly,  without  looking  at  him, 
said,  "  I  lied  to  you  about  myself  and  Kitty 
that  night ;  I  did  not  come  with  her.  I 
came  alone  and  secretly  to  Boomville  to  see 
—  to  see  the  man  who  is  my  husband." 

"  Your  husband !  "  said  Barker  in  surprise. 
He  had  believed,  with  the  rest  of  the  world, 
that  there  had  been  no  communication  be- 
tween them  for  years.  Yet  so  intense  was 
his  interest  in  her  that  he  did  not  notice 
that  this  revelation  was  leaving  now  no  ex- 
cuse for  his  wife's  presence  at  Boomville. 


THESE  PAETNEES.  293 

Mrs.  Horncastle  went  on  with  dogged  bit- 
terness, "  Yes,  my  husband.  I  went  to  him 
to  beg  and  bribe  him  to  let  me  see  my  child. 
Yes,  my  child,"  she  said  frantically,  tighten- 
ing her  hold  upon  his  hand,  "  for  I  lied  to 
you  when  I  once  told  you  I  had  none.  I 
had  a  child,  and,  more  than  that,  a  child 
who  at  his  birth  I  did  not  dare  to  openly 
claim." 

She  stopped  breathlessly,  stared  at  his 
face  with  her  former  intensity  as  if  she  would 
pluck  the  thought  that  followed  from  his 
brain.  But  he  only  moved  closer  to  her, 
passed  his  arm  over  her  shoulders  with  a 
movement  so  natural  and  protecting  that  it 
had  a  certain  dignity  in  it,  and,  looking 
down  upon  her  bent  head  with  eyes  brim- 
ming with  sympathy,  whispered,  "  Poor, 
poor  child !  " 

Whereat  Mrs.  Horncastle  again  burst  into 
tears.  And  then,  with  her  head  half  drawn 
towards  his  shoulder,  she  told  him  all,  —  all 
that  had  passed  between  her  and  her  husband, 
—  even  all  that  they  had  then  but  hinted  at. 
It  was  as  if  she  felt  she  could  now,  for  the 
first  time,  voice  all  these  terrible  memories 
of  the  past  which  had  come  back  to  her  last 


294  THREE  PARTNERS. 

night  when  her  husband  had  left  her.  She 
concealed  nothing,  she  veiled  nothing  ;  there 
were  intervals  when  her  tears  no  longer 
flowed,  and  a  cruel  hardness  and  return  of 
her  old  imperiousness  of  voice  and  manner 
took  their  place,  as  if  she  was  doing  a  rigid 
penance  and  took  a  bitter  satisfaction  in  lay- 
ing bare  her  whole  soul  to  him.  "  I  never 
had  a  friend,"  she  whispered  ;  "  there  were 
women  who  persecuted  me  with  their  jealous 
sneers  ;  there  were  men  who  persecuted  me 
with  their  selfish  affections.  When  I  first 
saw  you,  you  seemed  something  so  apart  and 
different  from  all  other  men  that,  although  I 
scarcely  knew  you,  I  wanted  to  tell  you,  even 
then,  all  that  I  have  told  you  now.  I  wanted 
you  to  be  my  friend ;  something  told  me  that 
you  could,  —  that  you  could  separate  me 
from  my  past ;  that  you  could  tell  me  what 
to  do ;  that  you  could  make  me  think  as  you 
thought,  see  life  as  you  saw  it,  and  trust 
always  to  some  goodness  in  people  as  you 
did.  And  in  this  faith  I  thought  that  you 
would  understand  me  now,  and  even  forgive 
me  all." 

She  made  a  slight  movement  as  if  to  dis- 
engage his  arm,  and,  possibly,  to  look  into 


THREE  PARTNERS.  295 

his  eyes,  which  she  knew  instinctively  were 
bent  upon  her  downcast  head.  But  he  only 
held  her  the  more  tightly  until  her  cheek 
was  close  against  his  breast.  "  What  could 
I  do  ?  "  she  murmured.  "  A  man  in  sorrow 
and  trouble  may  go  to  a  woman  for  sympathy 
and  support  and  the  world  will  not  gainsay 
or  misunderstand  him.  But  a  woman  — 
weaker,  more  helpless,  credulous,  ignorant, 
and  craving  for  light  —  must  not  in  her 
agony  go  to  a  man  for  succor  and  sym- 
pathy." 

"  Why  should  she  not  ?  "  burst  out  Barker 
passionately,  releasing  her  in  his  attempt  to 
gaze  into  her  face.  "  What  man  dare  refuse 
her?" 

"  Not  that"  she  said  slowly,  but  with  still 
averted  eyes,  "  but  because  the  world  would 
say  she  loved  him." 

"  And  what  should  she  care  for  the  opin- 
ion of  a  world  that  stands  aside  and  lets  her 
suffer  ?  Why  should  she  heed  its  wretched 
babble  ? "  he  went  on  in  flashing  indigna- 
tion. 

"Because,"  she  said  faintly,  lifting  her 
moist  eyes  and  moist  and  parted  lips  towards 
him, —  "  because  it  would  be  true  !  " 


296  THREE  PARTNERS. 

There  was  a  silence  so  profound  that  even 
the  spring  seemed  to  withhold  its  song  as 
their  eyes  and  lips  met.  When  the  spring 
recommenced  its  murmur,  and  they  could 
hear  the  droning  of  a  bee  above  them  and 
the  rustling  of  the  reed,  she  was  murmuring; 
too,  with  her  face  against  his  breast :  "  You 
did  not  think  it  strange  that  I  should  follow 
you  —  that  I  should  risk  everything  to  tell 
you  what  I  have  told  you  before  I  told  you 
anything  else  ?  You  will  never  hate  me  for 
it,  George?" 

There  was  another  silence  still  more  pro- 
longed, and  when  he  looked  again  into  the 
flushed  face  and  glistening  eyes  he  was  say- 
ing, "  I  have  always  loved  you.  I  know 
now  I  loved  you  from  the  first,  from  the 
day  when  I  leaned  over  you  to  take  little 
Sta  from  your  lap  and  saw  your  tenderness 
for  him  in  your  eyes.  I  could  have  kissed 
you  the?i,  dearest,  as  I  do  now." 

"  And,"  she  said,  when  she  had  gained 
her  smiling  breath  again,  "  you  will  always 
remember,  George,  that  you  told  me  this 
before  I  told  you  anything  of  her." 

"Her?  Of  whom,  dearest?"  he  asked, 
leaning  over  her  tenderly. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  297 

"Of  Kitty  —  of  your  wife,"  she  said  im- 
patiently, as  she  drew  back  shyly  with  her 
former  intense  gaze. 

He  did  not  seem  to  grasp  her  meaning, 
but  said  gravely,  "Let  us  not  talk  of  her 
now.  Later  we  shall  have  much  to  say  of 
her.  For,"  he  added  quietly,  "  you  know  I 
must  tell  her  all." 

The  color  faded  from  her  cheek.  "  Tell 
her  all !  "  she  repeated  vacantly  ;  then  sud- 
denly she  turned  upon  him  eagerly,  and 
said,  "  But  what  if  she  is  gone  ?  " 

"  Gone  ?  "  he  repeated. 

"  Yes  ;  gone.  What  if  she  has  run  away 
with  Van  Loo  ?  What  if  she  has  disgraced 
you  and  her  child  ?  " 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  said,  seizing 
both  her  hands  and  gazing  at  her  fixedly. 

"  I  mean,"  she  said,  with  a  half -frightened 
eagerness,  "  that  she  has  already  gone  with 
Van  Loo.  George !  George !  "  she  burst  out 
suddenly  and  passionately,  falling  upon  her 
knees  before  him,  "do  you  think  that  I 
would  have  followed  you  here  and  told  you 
what  I  did  if  I  thought  that  she  had  now 
the  slightest  claim  upon  your  love  or  honor? 
Don't  you  understand  me?  I  came  to  tell 


298  THREE  PARTNERS. 

you  of  her  flight  to  Boomville  with  that 
man ;  how  I  accidentally  intercepted  them 
there ;  how  I  tried  to  save  her  from  him, 
and  even  lied  to  you  to  try  to  save  her  from 
your  indignation  ;  but  how  she  deceived  me 
as  she  has  you,  and  even  escaped  and  joined 
her  lover  while  you  were  with  me.  I  came 
to  tell  you  that  and  nothing  more,  George,  I 
swear  it.  But  when  you  were  kind  to  me 
and  pitied  me,  I  was  mad  —  wild !  I  wanted 
to  win  you  first  out  of  your  own  love.  I 
wanted  you  to  respond  to  mine  before  you 
knew  your  wife  was  faithless.  Yet  I  would 
have  saved  her  if  I  could.  Listen,  George ! 
A  moment  more  before  you  speak  !  " 

Then  she  hurriedly  told  him  all ;  the 
whole  story  of  his  wife's  dishonor,  from  her 
entrance  into  the  sitting-room  with  Van  Loo, 
her  later  appeal  for  concealment  from  her 
husband's  unexpected  presence,  to  the  use 
she  made  of  that  concealment  to  fly  with 
her  lover.  She  spared  no  detail,  and  even 
repeated  the  insult  Mrs.  Barker  had  cast 
upon  her  with  the  triumphant  reproach  that 
her  husband  would  not  believe  her.  "  Per- 
haps," she  added  bitterly,  "you  may  not 
believe  me  now.  I  could  even  stand  that 


THREE  PARTNERS.  299 

from  you,  George,  if  it  could  make  you  hap- 
pier ;  but  you  would  still  have  to  believe  it 
from  others.  The  people  at  the  Boomville 
Hotel  saw  them  leave  it  together." 

"  I  do  believe  you,"  he  said  slowly,  but 
with  downcast  eyes,  "  and  if  I  did  not  love 
you  before  you  told  me  this  I  could  love  you 
now  for  the  part  you  have  taken ;  but "  — 
He  stopped. 

"  You  love  her  still,"  she  burst  out,  "  and 
I  might  have  known  it.  Perhaps,"  she  went 
on  distractedly,  "you  love  her  the  more 
that  you  have  lost  her.  It  is  the  way  of 
men  —  and  women." 

"  If  I  had  loved  her  truly,"  said  Barker, 
lifting  his  frank  eyes  to  hers,  "  I  could  not 
have  touched  your  lips.  I  could  not  even 
have  wished  to  —  as  I  did  three  years  ago 
—  as  I  did  last  night.  Then  I  feared  it  was 
my  weakness,  now  I  know  it  was  my  love. 
I  have  thought  of  it  ever  since,  even  while 
waiting  my  wife's  return  here,  knowing  that 
I  did  not  and  never  could  have  loved  her. 
But  for  that  very  reason  I  must  try  to  save 
her  for  her  own  sake,  if  I  cannot  save  her 
for  mine ;  and  if  I  fail,  dearest,  it  shall  not 
be  said  that  we  climbed  to  happiness  over 


300  THREE  PARTNERS. 

her  back  bent  with  the  burden  of  her  shame. 
If  I  loved  you  and  told  you  so,  thinking  her 
still  guiltless  and  innocent,  how  could  I 
profit  now  by  her  fault  ?  " 

Mrs.  Horncastle  saw  too  late  her  mistake. 
"  Then  you  would  take  her  back  ?  "  she  said 
frenziedly. 

"  To  my  home  —  which  is  hers  —  yes. 
To  my  heart  —  no.  She  never  was  there." 

"  And  /,  "  said  Mrs.  Horncastle,  with  a 
quivering  lip,  —  "  where  do  /  go  when  you 
have  settled  this  ?  Back  to  my  past  again  ? 
Back  to  my  husbandless,  childless  life  ?  " 

She  was  turning  away,  but  Barker  caught 
her  in  his  arms  again.  "  No !  "  he  said,  his 
whole  face  suddenly  radiating  with  hope  and 
youthful  enthusiasm.  "  No !  Kitty  will  help 
us ;  we  will  tell  her  all.  You  do  not  know 
her,  dearest,  as  I  do  —  how  good  and  kind 
she  is,  in  spite  of  all.  We  will  appeal  to 
her ;  she  will  devise  some  means  by  which, 
without  the  scandal  of  a  divorce,  she  and  I 
may  be  separated.  She  will  take  dear  little 
Sta  with  her  —  it  is  only  right,  poor  girl ; 
but  she  will  let  me  come  and  see  him.  She 
will  be  a  sister  to  us,  dearest.  Courage! 
All  will  come  right  yet.  Trust  to  me." 


THREE  PARTNERS.  301 

Aii  hysterical  laugh  came  to  Mrs.  Horn- 
castle's  lips  and  then  stopped.  For  as  she 
looked  up  at  him  in  his  supreme  hopefulness, 
his  divine  confidence  in  himself  and  others 

—  at  his  handsome  face  beaming  with  love 
and  happiness,  and  his  clear  gray  eyes  glit- 
tering with  an  almost  spiritual  prescience 

—  she,  woman  of  the  world  and  bitter  expe- 
rience, and  perfectly  cognizant  of  her  own 
and  Kitty's  possibilities,  was,  nevertheless, 
completely  carried  away  by  her  lover's  op- 
timism.    For  of  all  optimism  that  of  love 
is  the  most  convincing.     Dear  boy  !  —  for 
he  was  but  a  boy  in  experience  —  only  his 
love  for  her  could  work  this  magic.     So  she 
gave  him  kiss  for  kiss,  largely   believing, 
largely  hoping,  that  Mrs.  Barker  was  in  love 
with  Van  Loo  and  would  not  return.     And 
in  this  hope  an  invincible  belief  in  the  folly 
of  her  own  sex  soothed  and  sustained  her. 

"  We  must  go  now,  dearest,"  said  Barker, 
pointing  to  the  sun  already  near  the  meri- 
dian. Three  hours  had  fled,  they  knew  not 
how.  "  I  will  bring  you  back  to  the  hill 
again,  but  there  we  had  better  separate,  you 
taking  your  way  alone  to  the  hotel  as  you 
came,  and  I  will  go  a  little  way  on  the  road 


302  THREE  PARTNERS. 

to  the  Divide  and  return  later.  Keep  your 
own  counsel  about  Kitty  for  her  sake  and 
ours ;  perhaps  no  one  else  may  know  the 
truth  yet."  With  a  farewell  kiss  they 
plunged  again  hand  in  hand  through  the  cool 
bracken  and  again  through  the  hot  manza- 
nita  bushes,  and  so  parted  on  the  hilltop,  as 
they  had  never  parted  before,  leaving  their 
whole  world  behind  them. 

Barker  walked  slowly  along  the  road  un- 
der the  flickering  shade  of  wayside  sycamore, 
his  sensitive  face  also  alternating  with  his 
thought  in  lights  and  shadows.  Presently 
there  crept  towards  him  out  of  the  distance 
a  halting,  vacillating,  deviating  buggy,  trail- 
ing a  cloud  of  dust  after  it  like  a  broken 
wing.  As  it  came  nearer  he  could  see  that 
the  horse  was  spent  and  exhausted,  and  that 
the  buggy's  sole  occupant  —  a  woman  — 
was  equally  exhausted  in  her  monotonous 
attempt  to  urge  it  forward  with  whip  and 
reins  that  rose  and  fell  at  intervals  with 
feeble  reiteration.  Then  he  stepped  out  of 
the  shadow  and  stood  in  the  middle  of  the 
sunlit  road  to  await  it.  For  he  recognized 
his  wife. 

The  buggy  came  nearer.     And  then  the 


THREE  PARTNERS.  303 

most  exquisite  pang  he  had  ever  felt  before 
at  his  wife's  hands  shot  through  him.  For 
as  she  recognized  him  she  made  a  wild  but 
impotent  attempt  to  dash  past  him,  and  then 
as  suddenly  pulled  up  in  the  ditch. 

He  went  up  to  her.  She  was  dirty,  she 
was  disheveled,  she  was  haggard,  she  was 
plain.  There  were  rings  of  dust  round  her 
tear-swept  eyes  and  smudges  of  dust-dried 
perspiration  over  her  fair  cheek.  He  thought 
of  the  beauty,  freshness,  and  elegance  of  the 
woman  he  had  just  left,  and  an  infinite  pity 
swept  the  soul  of  this  weak-minded  gentle- 
man. He  ran  towards  her,  and  tenderly 
lifting  her  in  her  shame-stained  garments 
from  the  buggy,  said  hurriedly,  "  I  know  it 
all,  poor  Kitty !  You  heard  the  news  of 
Van  Loo's  flight,  and  you  ran  over  to  the 
Divide  to  try  and  save  some  of  your  money. 
Why  did  n't  you  wait  ?  Why  did  n't  you 
tell  me?" 

There  was  no  mistaking  the  reality  of  his 
words,  the  genuine  pity  and  tenderness  of 
his  action  ;  but  the  woman  saw  before  her 
only  the  familiar  dupe  of  her  life,  and  felt 
an  infinite  relief  mingled  with  a  certain  con- 
tempt for  his  weakness  and  anger  at  her  pre- 
vious fears  of  him. 


304  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  You  might  have  driven  over,  then,  your- 
self," she  said  in  a  high,  querulous  voice, 
"  if  you  knew  it  so  well,  and  have  spared  me 
this  horrid,  dirty,  filthy,  hopeless  expedition, 
for  I  have  not  saved  anything  —  there !  And 
I  have  had  all  this  disgusting  bother !  " 

For  an  instant  he  was  sorely  tempted  to 
lift  his  eyes  to  her  face,  but  he  checked  him- 
self ;  then  he  gently  took  her  dust-coat  from 
her  shoulders  and  shook  it  out,  wiped  the 
dust  from  her  face  and  eyes  with  his  own 
handkerchief,  held  her  hat  and  blew  the  dust 
from  it  with  a  vivid  memory  of  performing 
the  same  service  for  Mrs.  Horncastle  only 
an  hour  before,  while  she  arranged  her  hair  ; 
and  then,  lifting  her  again  into  the  buggy, 
said  quietly,  as  he  took  his  seat  beside  her 
and  grasped  the  reins  :  — 

"  I  will  drive  you  to  the  hotel  by  way  of 
the  stables,  and  you  can  go  at  once  to  your 
room  and  change  your  clothes.  You  are 
tired,  you  are  nervous  and  worried,  and  want 
rest.  Don't  tell  me  anything  now  until  you 
feel  quite  yourself  again." 

He  whipped  up  the  horse,  who,  recogniz- 
ing another  hand  at  the  reins,  lunged  for- 
ward in  a  final  effort,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
they  were  at  the  hotel. 


THREE  PAETNERS.  305 

As  Mrs.  Horncastle  sat  at  luncheon  in 
the  great  dining-room,  a  little  pale  and  ab- 
stracted, she  saw  Mrs.  Barker  sweep  confi- 
dently into  the  room,  fresh,  rosy,  and  in  a 
new  and  ravishing  toilette.  With  a  swift 
glance  of  conscious  power  towards  the  other 
guests  she  walked  towards  Mrs.  Horn- 
castle.  "  Ah,  here  you  are,  dear,"  she  said 
in  a  voice  that  could  easily  reach  all  ears, 
"  and  you  've  arrived  only  a  little  before 
me,  after  all.  And  I  've  had  such  an  awful 
drive  to  the  Divide !  And  only  think ! 
poor  George  telegraphed  to  me  at  Boomville 
not  to  worry,  and  his  dispatch  has  only  just 
come  back  here." 

And  with  a  glance  of  complacency  she 
laid  Barker's  gentle  and  forgiving  dispatch 
before  the  astonished  Mrs.  Horncastle. 


CHAPTER  VIH. 

As  the  day  advanced  the  excitement  over 
the  financial  crisis  increased  at  Hymettus, 
until,  in  spite  of  its  remote  and  peaceful  iso- 
lation, it  seemed  to  throb  through  all  its 
verandas  and  corridors  with  some  pulsation 
from  the  outer  world.  Besides  the  letters 
and  dispatches  brought  by  hurried  mes- 
sengers and  by  coach  from  the  Divide, 
there  was  a  crowd  of  guests  and  servants 
around  the  branch  telegraph  at  the  new 
Heavy  Tree  post-office  which  was  constantly 
augmenting.  Added  to  the  natural  anxiety 
of  the  deeply  interested  was  the  stimulated 
fever  of  the  few  who  wished  to  be  "  in  the 
fashion."  It  was  early  rumored  that  a 
heavy  operator,  a  guest  of  the  hotel,  who 
was  also  a  director  in  the  telegraph  com- 
pany, had  bought  up  the  wires  for  his  sole 
use,  that  the  dispatches  were  doctored  in  his 
interests  as  a  "  bear,"  and  there  was  wild 
talk  of  lynching  by  the  indignant  mob.  Pas- 


THREE  PARTNERS.  307 

sengers  from  Sacramento,  San  Francisco, 
and  Marysville  brought  incredible  news  and 
the  wildest  sensations.  Firm  after  firm  had 
failed  in  the  great  cities.  Old  established 
houses  that  dated  back  to  the  "  spring  of 
'49,"  and  had  weathered  the  fires  and  inun- 
dations of  their  perilous  Californian  infancy, 
collapsed  before  this  mysterious,  invisible, 
impalpable  breath  of  panic.  Companies 
rooted  in  respectability  and  sneered  at  for 
old-fashioned  ways  were  discovered  to  have 
shamelessly  speculated  with  trusts !  An 
eminent  deacon  and  pillar  of  the  church  was 
found  dead  in  his  room  with  a  bullet  in  his 
heart  and  a  damning  confession  on  the  desk 
before  him !  Foreign  bankers  were  sending 
their  gold  out  of  the  country  ;  government 
would  be  appealed  to  to  open  the  vaults  of 
the  Mint ;  there  would  be  an  embargo  on 
all  bullion  shipment !  Nothing  was  too 
wild  or  preposterous  to  be  repeated  or  cre- 
dited. 

And  with  this  fever  of  sordid  passion  the 
summer  temperature  had  increased.  For 
the  last  two  weeks  the  thermometer  had 
stood  abnormally  high  during  the  day-long 
sunshine  ;  and  the  metallic  dust  in  the  roads 


308  THREE  PARTNERS. 

over  mineral  ranges  pricked  the  skin  like 
red-hot  needles.  In  the  deepest  woods  the 
aromatic  sap  stood  in  beads  on  felled  logs 
and  splintered  tree-shafts  ;  even  the  moun- 
tain night  breeze  failed  to  cool  these  baked 
and  heated  fastnesses.  There  were  ominous 
clouds  of  smoke  by  day  that  were  pillars 
of  fire  by  night  along  the  distant  valleys. 
Some  of  the  nearer  crests  were  etched 
against  the  midnight  sky  by  dull  red  creep- 
ing lines  like  a  dying  firework.  The  great 
hotel  itself  creaked  and  crackled  and  warped 
through  all  its  painted,  blistered,  and  ve- 
neered expanse,  and  was  filled  with  the  sti- 
fling breath  of  desiccation.  The  stucco 
cracked  and  crumbled  away  from  the  cor- 
nices ;  there  were  yawning  gaps  in  the 
boarded  floors  beneath  the  Turkey  carpets. 
Plate-glass  windows  became  hopelessly  fixed 
in  their  warped  and  twisted  sashes,  and 
added  to  the  heat ;  there  was  a  warm  in- 
cense of  pine  sap  in  the  dining-room  that 
flavored  all  the  cuisine.  And  yet  the  bab- 
ble of  stocks  and  shares  went  on,  and  peo- 
ple pricked  their  ears  over  their  soup  to 
catch  the  gossip  of  the  last  arrival. 

Demorest,  loathing  it  all  in  his  new-found 


THREE  PARTNERS.  309 

bitterness,  was  nevertheless  impatient  in  his 
inaction,  and  was  eagerly  awaiting  a  tele- 
grain  from  Stacy  ;  Barker  had  disappeared 
since  luncheon.  Suddenly  there  was  a  com- 
motion on  the  veranda  as  a  carriage  drove 
up  with  a  handsome,  gray-haired  woman. 
In  the  buzzing  of  voices  around  him  Demo- 
rest  heard  the  name  of  Mrs.  Van  Loo.  In 
further  comments,  made  in  more  smothered 
accents,  he  heard  that  Van  Loo  had  been 
stopped  at  Canon  Station,  but  that  no  war- 
rant had  yet  been  issued  against  him  ;  that 
it  was  generally  believed  that  the  bank 
dared  not  hold  him ;  that  others  openly 
averred  that  he  had  been  used  as  a  scape- 
goat to  avert  suspicion  from  higher  guilt. 
And  certainly  Mrs.  Van  Loo's  calm,  confi- 
dent air  seemed  to  corroborate  these  asser- 
tions. 

He  was  still  wondering  if  the  strange 
coincidence  which  had  brought  both  mother 
and  son  into  his  own  life  was  not  merely  a 
fancy,  as  far  as  she  was  concerned,  when  a 
waiter  brought  a  message  from  Mrs.  Van 
Loo  that  she  would  be  glad  to  see  him  for 
a  few  moments  in  her  room.  Last  night  he 
could  scarcely  have  restrained  his  eagerness 


310  THREE  PARTNERS. 

to  meet  her  and  elucidate  the  mystery  of 
the  photograph ;  now  he  was  conscious  of  an 
equally  strong  revulsion  of  feeling,  and  a 
dull  premonition  of  evil.  However,  it  was 
no  doubt  possible  that  the  man  had  told  her 
of  his  previous  inquiries,  and  she  had  merely 
acknowledged  them  by  that  message. 

Demorest  found  Mrs.  Van  Loo  in  the 
private  sitting-room  where  he  and  his  old 
partners  had  supped  on  the  preceding  night. 
She  received  him  with  unmistakable  courtesy 
and  even  a  certain  dignity  that  might  or 
might  not  have  been  assumed.  He  had  no 
difficulty  in  recognizing  the  son's  mechanical 
politeness  in  the  first,  but  he  was  puzzled  at 
the  second. 

"  The  manager  of  this  hotel,"  she  began, 
with  a  foreigner's  precision  of  English,  "  has 
just  told  me  that  you  were  at  present  occupy- 
ing my  rooms  at  his  invitation,  but  that  you 
wished  to  see  me  at  once  on  my  return,  and 
I  believe  that  I  was  not  wrong  in  apprehend- 
ing that  you  preferred  to  hear  my  wishes 
from  my  own  lips  rather  than  from  an  inn- 
keeper. I  had  intended  to  keep  these  rooms 
for  some  weeks,  but,  unfortunately  for  me, 
though  fortunately  for  you,  the  present 


THREE  PARTNERS.  311 

terrible  financial  crisis,  which  has  most  un- 
justly brought  my  son  into  such  scandalous 
prominence,  will  oblige  me  to  return  to  San 
Francisco  until  his  reputation  is  fully  cleared 
of  these  foul  aspersions.  I  shall  only  ask 
you  to  allow  me  the  undisturbed  possession 
of  these  rooms  for  a  couple  of  hours  until  I 
can  pack  my  trunks  and  gather  up  a  few 
souvenirs  that  I  almost  always  keep  with 
me." 

"  Pray,  consider  that  your  wishes  are  my 
own  in  respect  to  that,  my  dear  madam," 
returned  Demorest  gravely,  "  and  that,  in- 
deed, I  protested  against  even  this  temporary 
intrusion  upon  your  apartments  ;  but  I  con- 
fess that  now  that  you  have  spoken  of  your 
souvenirs  I  have  the  greatest  curiosity  about 
one  of  them,  and  that  even  my  object  in 
seeking  this  interview  was  to  gratify  it.  It 
is  in  regard  to  a  photograph  which  I  saw 
on  the  chimney-piece  in  your  bedroom,  which 
I  think  I  recognized  as  that  of  some  one 
whom  I  formerly  knew." 

There  was  a  sudden  look  of  sharp  sus- 
picion and  even  hard  aggressiveness  that 
quite  changed  the  lady's  face  as  he  men- 
tioned the  word  "  souvenir,"  but  it  quickly 


312  THESE  PARTNERS. 

changed  to  a  smile  as  she  put  up  her  fan 
with  a  gesture  of  arch  deprecation,  and  said : 

"  Ah  !  I  see.  Of  course,  a  lady's  photo- 
graph." 

The  reply  irritated  Demorest.  More  than 
that,  he  felt  a  sudden  sense  of  the  absolute 
sentimentality  of  his  request,  and  the  con- 
sciousness that  he  was  about  to  invite  the 
familiar  confidence  of  this  strange  woman  — 
whose  son  had  forged  his  name  —  in  regard 
to  her  ! 

"  It  was  a  Venetian  picture,"  he  began, 
and  stopped,  a  singular  disgust  keeping  him 
from  voicing  the  name. 

But  Mrs.  Van  Loo  was  less  reticent. 
"  Oh,  you  mean  my  dearest  friend  —  a  lovely 
picture,  and  you  know  her?  Why,  yes, 
surely.  You  are  the  Mr.  Demorest  who  — 
Of  course,  that  old  love-affair.  Well,  you 
are  a  marvel !  Five  years  ago,  at  least,  and 
you  have  not  forgotten !  I  really  must  write 
and  tell  her." 

"  Write  and  tell  her  !  "  Then  it  was  all 
a  lie  about  her  death  !  He  felt  not  only  his 
faith,  his  hope,  his  future  leaving  him,  but 
even  his  self-control.  With  an  effort  he 
said :  — 


THREE  PARTNERS.  313 

"  I  think  you  have  already  satisfied  my 
curiosity.  I  was  told  five  years  ago  that  she 
was  dead.  It  was  because  of  the  date  of 
the  photograph  —  two  years  later  —  that  I 
ventured  to  intrude  upon  you.  I  "was  anx- 
ious only  to  know  the  truth." 

"  She  certainly  was  very  much  living  and 
of  the  world  when  I  saw  her  last,  two  years 
ago,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Loo,  with  an  easy  smile. 
"  I  dare  say  that  was  a  ruse  of  her  rela- 
tives —  a  very  stupid  one  —  to  break  off  the 
affair,  for  I  think  they  had  other  plans. 
But,  dear  me !  now  I  remember,  was  there 
not  some  little  quarrel  between  you  before? 
Some  letter  from  you  that  was  not  very 
kind?  My  impression  is  that  there  was 
something  of  the  sort,  and  that  the  young 
lady  was  indignant.  But  only  for  a  time, 
you  know.  She  very  soon  forgot  it.  I  dare 
say  if  you  wrote  something  very  charming 
to  her  it  might  not  be  too  late.  We  women 
are  very  forgiving,  Mr.  Demorest,  and  al- 
though she  is  very  much  sought  after,  as  are 
all  young  American  girls  whose  fathers  can 
give  them  a  comfortable  dot,  her  parents 
might  be  persuaded  to  throw  over  a  poor 
prince  for  a  rich  countryman  in  the  end. 


314  THREE  PARTNERS. 

Of  course,  you  know,  to  you  Republicans 
there  is  always  something  fascinating  in 
titles  and  blood,  and  our  dear  friend  is  like 
other  girls.  Still,  it  is  worth  the  risk. 
And  five  years  of  waiting  and  devotion  really 
ought  to  tell.  It 's  quite  a  romance  !  Shall 
I  write  to  her  and  tell  her  I  have  seen  you, 
looking  well  and  prosperous  ?  Nothing  more. 
Do  let  me  !  I  should  be  delighted." 

"  I  think  it  hardly  worth  while  for  you  to 
give  yourself  that  trouble,"  said  Demorest 
quietly,  looking  in  Mrs.  Van  Loo's  smiling 
eyes,  "  now  that  I  know  the  story  of  the 
young  lady's  death  was  a  forgery.  And  I 
will  not  intrude  further  on  your  time.  Pray 
give  yourself  no  needless  hurry  over  your 
packing.  I  may  go  to  San  Francisco  this 
afternoon,  and  not  even  require  the  rooms 
to-night." 

"  At  least,  let  me  make  you  a  present  of 
the  souvenir  as  an  acknowledgment  of  your 
courtesy,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Loo,  passing  into 
her  bedroom  and  returning  with  the  photo- 
graph. "  I  feel  that  with  your  five  years  of 
constancy  it  is  more  yours  than  mine."  As 
a  gentleman  Demorest  knew  he  could  not 
refuse,  and  taking  the  photograph  from  her 


THREE  PARTNERS.  315 

with  a  low  bow,  with  another  final  salutation 
he  withdrew. 

Alone  by  himself  in  a  corner  of  the 
veranda  he  was  surprised  that  the  interview 
had  made  so  little  impression  on  him,  and 
had  so  little  altered  his  conviction.  His  dis- 
covery that  the  announcement  of  his  be- 
trothed's  death  was  a  fiction  did  not  affect 
the  fact  that  though  living  she  was  yet  dead 
to  him,  and  apparently  by  her  own  consent. 
The  contrast  between  her  life  and  his  during 
those  five  years  had  been  covertly  accented 
by  Mrs.  Van  Loo,  whether  intentionally  or 
not,  and  he  saw  again  as  last  night  the  full 
extent  of  his  sentimental  folly.  He  could 
not  even  condole  with  himself  that  he  was 
the  victim  of  miserable  falsehoods  that  oth- 
ers had  invented.  She  had  accepted  them, 
and  had  even  excused  her  desertion  of  him 
by  that  last  deceit  of  the  letter. 

He  drew  out  her  photograph  and  again 
examined  it,  but  not  as  a  lover.  Had  she 
really  grown  stouter  and  more  self-compla- 
cent ?  Was  the  spirituality  and  delicacy  he 
had  worshiped  in  her  purely  his  own  idiotic 
fancy?  Had  she  always  been  like  this? 
Yes.  There  was  the  girl  who  could  weakly 


316  THREE  PARTNERS. 

strive,  weakly  revenge  herself,  and  weakly 
forget.  There  was  the  figure  that  he  had 
expected  to  find  carved  upon  the  tomb  which 
he  had  long  sought  that  he  might  weep  over. 
He  laughed  aloud. 

It  was  very  hot,  and  he  was  stifling  with 
inaction.  What  was  Barker  doing,  and  why 
had  not  Stacy  telegraphed  to  him  ?  And 
what  were  those  people  in  the  courtyard 
doing  ?  Were  they  discussing  news  of  fur- 
ther disaster  and  ruin  ?  Perhaps  he  was 
even  now  a  beggar.  Well,  his  fortune 
might  go  with  his  faith. 

But  the  crowd  was  simply  looking  at  the 
roof  of  the  hotel,  and  he  now  saw  that  a 
black  smoke  was  drifting  across  the  court- 
yard, and  was  conscious  of  a  smell  of  soot 
and  burning.  He  stepped  down  from  the 
veranda  among  the  mingled  guests  and  ser- 
vants, and  saw  that  the  smoke  was  only 
pouring  from  a  chimney.  He  heard,  too, 
that  the  chimney  had  been  on  fire,  and  that 
it  was  Mrs.  Van  Loo's  bedroom  chimney, 
and  that  when  the  startled  servants  had 
knocked  at  the  locked  door  she  had  told  them 
that  she  was  only  burning  some  old  letters 
and  newspapers,  the  refuse  of  her  trunks. 


THREE  PARTNERS.  317 

There  was  naturally  some  indignation  that 
the  hotel  had  been  so  foolishly  endangered, 
in  such  scorching  weather,  and  the  manager 
had  had  a  scene  with  her  which  resulted  in 
her  leaving  the  hotel  indignantly  with  her 
half -packed  boxes.  But  even  after  the  smoke 
had  died  away  and  the  fire  been  extinguished 
in  the  chimney  and  hearth,  there  was  an 
acrid  smell  of  smouldering  pine  penetrating 
the  upper  floors  of  the  hotel  all  that  after- 
noon. 

When  Mrs.  Van  Loo  drove  away,  the 
manager  returned  with  Demorest  to  the 
rooms.  The  marble  hearth  was  smoked  and 
discolored  and  still  littered  with  charred 
ashes  of  burnt  paper.  "  My  belief  is,"  said 
the  manager  darkly,  "  that  the  old  hag  came 
here  just  to  burn  up  a  lot  of  incriminating 
papers  that  her  son  had  intrusted  to  her 
keeping.  It  looks  mighty  suspicious.  You 
see  she  got  up  an  awful  lot  of  side  when  I 
told  her  I  did  n't  reckon  to  run  a  smelting 
furnace  in  a  wooden  hotel  with  the  thermo- 
meter at  one  hundred  in  the  office,  and  I 
reckon  it  was  just  an  excuse  for  getting  off 
in  a  hurry." 

But  the  continued  delay  in  Stacy's  pro 


318  THREE  PARTNERS. 

mised  telegram  had  begun  to  work  upon  De- 
morest's  usual  equanimity,  and  he  scarcely 
listened  in  his  anxiety  for  his  old  partner. 
He  knew  that  Stacy  should  have  arrived  in 
San  Francisco  by  noon.  He  had  almost 
determined  to  take  the  next  train  from  the 
Divide  when  two  horsemen  dashed  into  the 
courtyard.  There  was  the  usual  stir  on 
the  veranda  and  rush  for  news,  but  the  two 
new  arrivals  turned  out  to  be  Barker,  on  a 
horse  covered  with  foam,  and  a  dashing,  ele- 
gantly dressed  stranger  on  a  mustang  as 
carefully  groomed  and  as  spotless  as  him- 
self. Demorest  instantly  recognized  Jack 
Hamlin. 

He  had  not  seen  Hamlin  since  that  day, 
five  years  before,  when  the  latter  had  accom- 
panied the  three  partners  with  their  treasure 
to  Boomville,  and  had  handed  him  the  mys- 
terious packet.  As  the  two  men  dismounted 
hurriedly  and  moved  towards  him,  he  felt  a 
premonition  of  something  as  fateful  and  im- 
portant as  then.  In  obedience  to  a  sign  from 
Barker  he  led  them  to  a  more  secluded  angle 
of  the  veranda.  He  could  not  help  noticing 
that  his  younger  partner's  face  was  mobile 
as  ever,  but  more  thoughtful  and  older  ;  yet 


THREE  PARTNERS.  319 

his  voice  rang  with  the  old  freemasonry  of 
the  camp,  as  he  said,  with  a  laugh,  "  The 
signal  has  been  given,  and  it 's  boot  and 
saddle  and  away." 

"But  I  have  had  no  dispatch  from 
Stacy,"  said  Demorest  in  surprise.  "He 
was  to  telegraph  to  me  from  San  Francisco 
in  any  emergency." 

"  He  never  got  there  at  all,"  said  Barker. 
"Jack  ran  slap  into  Van  Loo  at  the  Di- 
vide, and  sent  a  dispatch  to  Jim,  which 
stopped  him  halfway  until  Jack  could  reach 
him,  which  he  nearly  broke  his  neck  to  do  ; 
and  then  Jack  finished  up  by  bringing  a 
message  from  Stacy  to  us  that  we  should  all 
meet  together  on  the  slope  of  Heavy  Tree, 
near  the  Bar.  I  met  Jack  just  as  I  was 
riding  into  the  Divide,  and  came  back  with 
him.  He  will  tell  you  the  rest,  and  you  can 
swear  by  what  Jack  says,  for  he  's  white  all 
through,"  he  added,  laying  his  hand  affec- 
tionately on  Hamlin's  shoulder. 

Hamlin  winced  slightly.  For  he  had 
not  told  Barker  that  his  wife  was  with  Van 
Loo,  nor  his  first  reason  for  interfering. 
But  he  related  how  he  had  finally  overtaken 
Van  Loo  at  Canon  Station,  and  how  the  fu- 


320  THREE  PARTNERS. 

gitive  had  disclosed  the  conspiracy  of  Step» 
toe  and  Hall  against  the  bank  and  Marshall 
as  the  price  of  his  own  release.  On  this 
news,  remembering  that  Stacy  had  passed 
the  Divide  on  his  way  to  the  station,  he  had 
first  sent  a  dispatch  to  him,  and  then  met 
him  at  the  first  station  on  the  road.  "  I 
reckon,  gentlemen,"  said  Hamlin,  with  an 
unusual  earnestness  in  his  voice,  "  that  he  'd 
not  only  got  my  telegram,  but  all  the  news 
that  had  been  flying  around  this  morning, 
for  he  looked  like  a  man  to  whom  it  was 
just  a  '  toss-up '  whether  he  took  his  own 
life  then  and  there  or  was  willing  to  have 
somebody  else  take  it  for  him,  for  he  said, 
*  I  '11  go  myself,'  and  telegraphed  to  have 
the  surveyor  stopped  from  coming.  Then 
he  told  me  to  tell  you  fellows,  and  ask  you 
to  come  too."  Jack  paused,  and  added  half 
mischievously,  "  He  sort  of  asked  me  what  I 
would  take  to  stand  by  him  in  the  row,  if 
there  was  one,  and  I  told  him  I  'd  take  — 
whiskey !  You  see,  boys,  it 's  a  kind  of  off- 
night  with  me,  and  I  would  n't  mind  for  the 
sake  of  old  times  to  finish  the  game  with  old 
Steptoe  that  I  began  a  matter  of  five  years 
ago." 


THREE  PARTNERS.  321 

"  All  right,"  said  Demorest,  with  a  kin- 
dling eye ;  "  I  suppose  we  'd  better  start  at 
once.  One  moment,"  he  added.  "  Barker 
boy,  will  you  excuse  me  if  I  speak  a  word  to 
Hamlin  ?  "  As  Barker  nodded  and  walked 
to  the  rails  of  the  veranda,  Demorest  took 
Hamlin  aside.  "  You  and  I,"  he  said  hur- 
riedly, "  are  single  men  ;  Barker  has  a  wife 
and  child.  This  is  likely  to  be  no  child's 
play." 

But  Jack  Hamlin  was  no  fool,  and  from 
certain  leading  questions  which  Barker  had 
already  put,  but  which  he  had  skillfully 
evaded,  he  surmised  that  Barker  knew  some- 
thing of  his  wife's  escapade.  He  answered 
a  little  more  seriously  than  his  wont,  "I 
don't  think  as  regards  his  wife  that  would 
make  much  difference  to  him  or  her  how 
etiff  the  work  was." 

Demorest  turned  away  with  his  last  pang 
of  bitterness.  It  needed  only  this  confirma- 
tion of  all  that  Stacy  had  hinted,  of  what 
he  himself  had  seen  in  his  brief  interview 
with  Mrs.  Barker  since  his  return,  to  shake 
his  last  remaining  faith.  "  We  '11  all  go  to- 
gether, then,"  he  said,  with  a  laugh,  "  as  in 
the  old  times,  and  perhaps  it 's  as  well  that 
we  have  no  woman  in  our  confidence." 


322  THREE  PARTNERS. 

An  hour  later  the  three  men  passed 
quietly  out  of  the  hotel,  scarcely  noticed  by 
the  other  guests,  who  were  also  oblivious  of 
their  absence  during  the  evening.  For  Mrs. 
Barker,  quite  recovered  from  her  fatiguing 
ride,  was  in  high  spirits  and  the  most  beau- 
tiful and  spotless  of  summer  gowns,  and 
was  considered  quite  a  heroine  by  the  other 
ladies  as  she  dwelt  upon  the  terrible  heat 
of  her  return  journey.  "  Only  I  knew  Mr. 
Barker  would  be  worried  —  and  the  poor 
man  actually  walked  a  mile  down  the  Di- 
vide road  to  meet  me  —  I  believe  I  should 
have  stayed  there  all  day."  She  glanced 
round  the  other  groups  for  Mrs.  Horncastle, 
but  that  lady  had  retired  early.  Possibly 
she  alone  had  noticed  the  absence  of  the  two 
partners. 

The  guests  sat  up  until  quite  late,  for  the 
heat  seemed  to  grow  still  more  oppressive, 
and  the  strange  smell  of  burning  wood  revived 
the  gossip  about  Mrs.  Van  Loo  and  her  stu- 
pidity in  setting  fire  to  her  chimney.  Some 
averred  that  it  would  be  days  before  the 
smell  could  be  got  out  of  the  house  ;  others 
referred  it  to  the  fires  in  the  woods,  which 
were  now  dangerously  near.  One  spoke  of 


THREE  PARTNERS.  323 

the  isolated  position  of  the  hotel  as  affording 
the  greatest  security,  but  was  met  by  the 
assertion  of  a  famous  mountaineer  that  the 
forest  fires  were  wont  to  leap  from  crest  to 
crest  mysteriously,  without  any  apparent  con- 
tinuous contact.  This  led  to  more  or  less 
light-hearted  conjecture  of  present  danger 
and  some  amusing  stories  of  hotel  fires  and 
their  ludicrous  revelations.  There  were  also 
some  entertaining  speculations  as  to  what 
they  would  do  and  what  they  would  try  to 
save  in  such  an  emergency. 

"  For  myself,"  said  Mrs.  Barker  auda- 
ciously, "  I  should  certainly  let  Mr.  Barker 
look  after  Sta  and  confine  myself  entirely  to 
getting  away  with  my  diamonds.  I  know 
the  wretch  would  never  think -of  them." 

It  was  still  later  when,  exhausted  by  the 
heat  and  some  reaction  from  the  excitement 
of  the  day,  they  at  last  deserted  the  veranda 
for  their  rooms,  and  for  a  while  the  shadowy 
bulk  of  the  whole  building  was  picked  out 
with  regularly  spaced  lights  from  its  open 
windows,  until  now  these  finally  faded  and 
went  out  one  by  one.  An  hour  later  the 
whole  building  had  sunk  to  rest.  It  was 
said  that  it  was  only  four  in  the  morning 


324  THREE  PARTNERS. 

when  a  yawning  porter,  having  put  out  the 
light  in  a  dark,  upper  corridor,  was  amazed 
by  a  dull  glow  from  the  top  of  the  wall,  and 
awoke  to  the  fact  that  a  red  fire,  as  yet 
smokeless  and  flameless,  was  creeping  along 
the  cornice.  He  ran  to  the  office  and  gave 
the  alarm ;  but  on  returning  with  assistance 
was  stopped  in  the  corridor  by  an  impene- 
trable wall  of  smoke  veined  with  murky 
flashes.  The  alarm  was  given  in  all  the 
lower  loors,  and  the  occupants  rushed  from 
their  oeds  half  dressed  to  the  courtyard, 
only  10  see,  as  they  afterwards  averred,  the 
flames  burst  like  cannon  discharges  from 
the  upper  windows  and  unite  above  the 
crackling  roof.  So  sudden  and  complete 
was  the  catastrophe,  although  slowly  pre- 
pared by  a  leak  in  the  overheated  chimney 
between  the  floors,  that  even  the  excitement 
of  fear  and  exertion  was  spared  the  surviv- 
ors. There  was  bewilderment  and  stupor, 
but  neither  uproar  nor  confusion.  People 
found  themselves  wandering  in  the  woods, 
half  awake  and  half  dressed,  having  de- 
scended from  the  balconies  and  leaped  from 
the  windows,  —  they  knew  not  how.  Others 
on  the  upper  floor  neither  awoke  nor  moved 


THESE  PARTNERS.  325 

from  their  beds,  but  were  suffocated  without 
a  cry.  From  the  first  an  instinctive  idea  of 
the  hopelessness  of  combating  the  conflagra- 
tion possessed  them  all ;  to  a  blind,  automatic 
feeling  to  flee  the  building  was  added  the 
slow  mechanism  of  the  somnambulist ;  deli- 
cate  women  walked  speechlessly,  but  securely, 
along  ledges  and  roofs  from  which  they 
would  have  fallen  by  the  mere  light  of  rea- 
son and  of  day.  There  was  no  crowding  or 
impeding  haste  in  their  dumb  exodus.  It 
was  only  when  Mrs.  Barker  awoke  dishev- 
eled in  the  courtyard,  and  with  an  hysterical 
outcry  rushed  back  into  the  hotel,  that  there 
was  any  sign  of  panic. 

Mrs.  Horncastle,  who  was  standing  near, 
fully  dressed  as  from  some  night-long  vigil, 
quickly  followed  her.  The  half-frantic  wo- 
man was  making  directly  for  her  own  apart- 
ments, whose  windows  those  in  the  courtyard 
could  see  were  already  belching  smoke.  Sud- 
denly Mrs.  Horncastle  stopped  with  a  bitter 
cry  and  clasped  her  forehead.  It  had  just 
flashed  upon  her  that  Mrs.  Barker  had  told 
her  only  a  few  hours  before  that  Sta  had 
been  removed  with  the  nurse  to  the  upper 
floor  !  It  was  not  the  forgotten  child  that 


326  THREE  PARTNERS. 

Mrs.  Barker  was  returning  for,  but  her  dia- 
monds !  Mrs.  Horncastle  called  her ;  she 
did  not  reply.  The  smoke  was  already  pour- 
ing down  the  staircase.  Mrs.  Horncastle 
hesitated  for  a  moment  only,  and  then, 
drawing  a  long  breath,  dashed  up  the  stairs. 
On  the  first  landing  she  stumbled  over  some- 
thing—  the  prostrate  figure  of  the  nurse. 
But  this  saved  her,  for  she  found  that  near 
the  floor  she  could  breathe  more  freely. 
Before  her  appeared  to  be  an  open  door. 
She  crept  along  towards  it  on  her  hands 
and  knees.  The  frightened  cry  of  a  child, 
awakened  from  its  sleep  in  the  dark,  gave 
her  nerve  to  rise,  enter  the  room,  and  dash 
open  the  window.  By  the  flashing  light  she 
could  see  a  little  figure  rising  from  a  bed. 
It  was  Sta.  There  was  not  a  moment  to 
be  lost,  for  the  open  window  was  beginning 
to  draw  the  smoke  from  the  passage.  Luck- 
ily, the  boy,  by  some  childish  instinct,  threw 
his  arms  round  her  neck  and  left  her  hands 
free.  Whispering  him  to  hold  tight,  she 
clambered  out  of  the  window.  A  narrow 
ledge  of  cornice  scarcely  wide  enough  for 
her  feet  ran  along  the  house  to  a  distant 
balcony.  With  her  back  to  the  house  she 


THESE  PARTNERS.  327 

zigzagged  her  feet  along  the  cornice  to  get 
away  from  the  smoke,  which  now  poured 
directly  from  the  window.  Then  she  grew 
dizzy ;  the  weight  of  the  child  on  her  bosom 
seemed  to  be  toppling  her  forward  towards 
the  abyss  below.  She  closed  her  eyes,  fran- 
tically grasping  the  child  with  crossed  arms 
on  her  breast  as  she  stood  on  the  ledge, 
until,  as  seen  from  below  through  the  twist- 
ing smoke,  they  might  have  seemed  a  figure 
of  the  Madonna  and  Child  niched  in  the 
wall.  Then  a  voice  from  above  called  to 
her,  "  Courage !  "  and  she  felt  the  flap  of  a 
twisted  sheet  lowered  from  an  upper  window 
against  her  face.  She  grasped  it  eagerly; 
it  held  firmly.  Then  she  heard  a  cry  from 
below,  saw  them  carrying  a  ladder,  and  at 
last  was  lifted  with  her  burden  from  the 
ledge  by  powerful  hands.  Then  only  did 
she  raise  her  eyes  to  the  upper  window 
whence  had  come  her  help.  Smoke  and 
flame  were  pouring  from  it.  The  unknown 
hero  who  had  sacrificed  his  only  chance  of 
escape  to  her  remained  forever  unknown. 

*•••••*• 

Only  four  miles  away  that  night  a  group 
of  men  were  waiting  for  the  dawn  in  the 


328  THREE  PARTNERS. 

shadow  of  a  pine  near  Heavy  Tree  Bar. 
As  the  sky  glowed  redly  over  the  crest  be- 
tween them  and  Hymettus,  Hamlin  said  :  — • 

"  Another  one  of  those  forest  fires.  It 's 
this  side  of  Black  Spur,  and  a  big  one,  I 
reckon." 

"Do  you  know,"  said  Barker  thought- 
fully, "  I  was  thinking  of  the  time  the  old 
cabin  burnt  up  on  Heavy  Tree.  It  looks  to 
be  about  in  the  same  place." 

"Hush !  "  said  Stacy  sharply. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

AN  abandoned  tunnel  —  an  irregular  ori- 
fice in  the  mountain  flank  which  looked  like 
a  dried-up  sewer  that  had  disgorged  through 
its  opening  the  refuse  of  the  mountain  in 
red  slime,  gravel,  and  a  peculiar  clay  known 
as  "  cement,"  in  a  foul  streak  down  its  side ; 
a  narrow  ledge  on  either  side,  broken  up  by 
heaps  of  quartz,  tailings,  and  rock,  and  half 
hidden  in  scrub,  oak,  and  myrtle  ;  a  decay- 
ing cabin  of  logs,  bark,  and  cobblestones  — 
these  made  up  the  exterior  of  the  Marshall 
claim.  To  this  defacement  of  the  moun- 
tain, the  rude  clearing  of  thicket  and  under- 
brush by  fire  or  blasting,  the  lopping  of 
tree-boughs  and  the  decapitation  of  saplings, 
might  be  added  the  debris  and  ruins  of  half- 
civilized  occupancy.  The  ground  before  the 
cabin  was  covered  with  broken  boxes,  tin 
cans,  the  staves  and  broken  hoops  of  casks, 
and  the  cast-off  rags  of  blankets  and  cloth- 
ing. The  whole  claim  in  its  unsavory,  un- 


330  THREE  PAETNEES. 

picturesque  details,  and  its  vulgar  story  of 
sordid,  reckless,  and  selfish  occupancy  and 
abandonment,  was  a  foul  blot  on  the  land- 
scape, which  the  first  rosy  dawn  only  made 
the  more  offending.  Surely  the  last  spot 
in  the  world  that  men  should  quarrel  and 
fight  for ! 

So  thought  George  Barker,  as  with  his 
companions  they  moved  in  single  file  slowly 
towards  it.  The  little  party  consisted  only 
of  himself,  Demorest,  and  Stacy  ;  Marshall 
and  Hamlin  —  according  to  a  prearranged 
plan  —  were  still  in  ambush  to  join  them 
at  the  first  appearance  of  Steptoe  and  his 
gang.  The  claim  was  yet  unoccupied  ;  they 
had  secured  their  first  success.  Steptoe's 
followers,  unaware  that  his  design  had  been 
discovered,  and  confident  that  they  could 
easily  reach  the  claim  before  Marshall  and 
the  surveyor,  had  lingered.  Some  of  them 
had  held  a  drunken  carouse  at  their  rendez- 
vous at  Heavy  Tree.  Others  were  still  en- 
gaged in  procuring  shovels  and  picks  and 
pans  for  their  mock  equipment  as  miners, 
and  this,  again,  gave  Marshall's  adherents 
the  advantage.  They  knew  that  their  op- 
ponents would  probably  first  approach  the 


THESE  PAETNEES.  331 

empty  claim  encumbered  only  with  their 
peaceful  implements,  while  they  themselves 
had  brought  their  rifles  with  them. 

Stacy,  who  by  tacit  consent  led  the 
party,  on  reaching  the  claim  at  once  posted 
Demorest  and  Barker  each  behind  a  sepa- 
rate heap  of  quartz  tailings  on  the  ledge, 
which  afforded  them  a  capital  breastwork, 
and  stationed  himself  at  the  mouth  of  the 
tunnel  wHich  was  nearest  the  trail.  It  had 
already  been  arranged  what  each  man  was 
to  do.  They  were  in  possession.  For  the 
rest  they  must  wait.  What  they  thought 
at  that  moment  no  one  knew.  Their  char- 
acteristic appearance  had  slightly  changed. 
The  melancholy  and  philosophic  Demorest 
was  alert  and  bitter.  Barker's  changeful 
face  had  become  fixed  and  steadfast.  Stacy 
alone  wore  his  "  fighting  look,"  which  the 
others  had  remembered. 

They  had  not  long  to  wait.  The  sounds 
of  rude  laughter,  coarse  skylarking,  and 
voices  more  or  less  still  confused  with  half- 
spent  liquor  came  from  the  rocky  trail. 
And  then  Stcptoe  appeared  with  part  of  his 
straggling  followers,  who  were  celebrating 
their  easy  invasion  by  clattering  their  picks 


332  THREE  PARTNERS. 

and  shovels  and  beating  loudly  upon  their 
tins  and  prospecting-pans.  The  three  part- 
ners quickly  recognized  the  stamp  of  the 
strangers,  in  spite  of  their  peaceful  imple- 
ments. They  were  the  waifs  and  strays  of 
San  Francisco  wharves,  of  Sacramento  dens, 
of  dissolute  mountain  towns  ;  and  there  was 
not,  probably,  a  single  actual  miner  among 
them.  A  raging  scorn  and  contempt  took 
possession  of  Barker  and  Demorest,  but 
Stacy  knew  their  exact  value.  As  Steptoe 
passed  before  the  opening  of  the  tunnel  he 
heard  the  cry  of  "  Halt !  " 

He  looked  up.  He  saw  Stacy  not  thirty 
yards  before  him  with  his  rifle  at  half-cock. 
He  saw  Barker  and  Demorest,  fully  armed, 
rise  from  behind  their  breastworks  of  rock 
along  the  ledge  and  thus  fully  occupy  the 
claim.  But  he  saw  more.  He  saw  that  his 
plot  was  known.  Outlaw  and  desperado  as 
he  was,  he  saw  that  he  had  lost  his  moral 
power  in  this  actual  possession,  and  that 
from  that  moment  he  must  be  the  aggressor. 
He  saw  he  was  fighting  no  irresponsible 
hirelings  like  his  own,  but  men  of  position 
and  importance,  whose  loss  would  make  a 
stir.  Against  their  rifles  the  few  revolvers 


THREE  PARTNERS.  833 

that  liis  men  chanced  to  have  slung  to  them 
were  of  little  avail.  But  he  was  not  cowed, 
although  his  few  followers  stumbled  together 
at  this  momentary  check,  half  angrily,  half 
timorously  like  wolves  without  a  leader. 
"  Bring  up  the  other  men  and  their  guns," 
he  whispered  fiercely  to  the  nearest.  Then 
he  faced  Stacy. 

"  Who  are  you  to  stop  peaceful  miners 
going  to  work  on  their  own  claim  ?  "  he  said 
coarsely.  "  I  '11  tell  you  who,  boys,"  he 
added,  suddenly  turning  to  his  men  with  a 
hoarse  laugh.  "  It  ain't  even  the  bank ! 
It 's  only  Jim  Stacy,  that  the  bank  kicked 
out  yesterday  to  save  itself,  —  Jim  Stacy 
and  his  broken-down  pals.  And  what 's  the 
thief  doing  here  —  in  Marshall's  tunnel  — 
the  only  spot  that  Marshall  can  claim  ?  We 
ain't  no  particular  friends  o'  Marshall's, 
though  we  're  neighbors  on  the  same  claim  ; 
but  we  ain't  going  to  see  Marshall  ousted  by 
tramps.  Are  we,  boys  ?  " 

"  No,  by  G — d !  "  said  his  followers,  drop- 
ping the  pans  and  seizing  their  picks  and 
revolvers.  They  understood  the  appeal  to 
arms  if  not  to  their  reason.  For  an  instant 
the  fight  seemed  imminent.  Then  a  voice 
from  behind  them  said :  — 


334  THREE  PARTNERS. 

"  You  need  n't  trouble  yourselves  about 
that !  I'm  Marshall !  I  sent  these  gentle- 
men to  occupy  the  claim  until  I  came  here 
with  the  surveyor,"  and  two  men  stepped 
from  a  thicket  of  myrtle  in  the  rear  of  Step- 
toe  and  his  followers.  The  speaker,  Mar- 
shall, was  a  thin,  slight,  overworked,  over- 
aged  man  ;  his  companion,  the  surveyor,  was 
equally  slight,  but  red-bearded,  spectacled, 
and  professional-looking,  with  a  long  trav- 
eling-duster that  made  him  appear  even 
clerical.  They  were  scarcely  a  physical 
addition  to  Stacy's  party,  whatever  might 
have  been  their  moral  and  legal  support. 

But  it  was  just  this  support  that  Steptoe 
strangely  clung  to  in  his  designs  for  the 
future,  and  a  wild  idea  seized  him.  The 
surveyor  was  really  the  only  disinterested 
witness  between  the  two  parties.  If  Step- 
toe  could  confuse  his  mind  before  the  actual 
fighting  —  from  which  he  would,  of  course, 
escape  as  a  non-combatant  —  it  would  go 
far  afterwards  to  rehabilitate  Steptoe' s  party. 
"  Very  well,  then,"  he  said  to  Marshall,  "  I 
shall  call  this  gentleman  to  witness  that  we 
have  been  attacked  here  in  peaceable  pos- 
session of  our  part  of  the  claim  by  these 


THREE  PARTNERS.  836 

armed  strangers,  and  whether  they  are  act- 
ing on  your  order  or  not,  their  blood  will  be 
on  your  head." 

"  Then  I  reckon,"  said  the  surveyor,  as 
he  tore  away  his  beard,  wig,  spectacles,  and 
mustache,  and  revealed  the  figure  of  Jack 
Hamlin,  "  that  I  'm  about  the  last  witness 
that  Mr.  Steptoe-Horncastle  ought  to  call, 
and  about  the  last  witness  that  he  ever  will 
call!" 

But  he  had  not  calculated  upon  the  des- 
peration of  Steptoe  over  the  failure  of  this 
last  hope.  For  there  sprang  up  in  the  out- 
law's brain  the  same  hideous  idea  that  he 
voiced  to  his  companions  at  the  Divide. 
With  a  hoarse  cry  to  his  followers,  he  crashed 
his  pickaxe  into  the  brain  of  Marshall,  who 
stood  near  him,  and  sprang  forward.  Three 
or  four  shots  were  exchanged.  Two  of  his 
men  fell,  a  bullet  from  Stacy's  rifle  pierced 
Steptoe's  leg,  and  he  dropped  forward  on  one 
knee.  He  heard  the  steps  of  his  reinforce- 
ments with  their  weapons  coming  close  behind 
him,  and  rolled  aside  on  the  sloping  ledge  to 
let  them  pass.  But  he  rolled  too  far.  He 
felt  himself  slipping  down  the  mountain-side 
in  the  slimy  shoot  of  the  tunnel.  He  made  a 


830  THESE  PARTNERS. 

desperate  attempt  to  recover  himself,  "but  the 
treacherous  drift  of  the  loose  debris  rolled 
with  him,  as  if  he  were  part  of  its  refuse, 
and,  carrying  him  down,  left  him  uncon- 
scious, but  otherwise  uninjured,  in  the  bushes 
of  the  second  ledge  five  hundred  feet  below. 

When  he  recovered  his  senses  the  shouts 
and  outcries  above  him  had  ceased.  He 
knew  he  was  safe.  The  ledge  could  only  be 
reached  by  a  circuitous  route  three  miles 
away.  He  knew,  too,  that  if  he  could  only 
reach  a  point  of  outcrop  a  hundred  yards 
away  he  could  easily  descend  to  the  stage 
road,  down  the  gentle  slope  of  the  mountain 
hidden  in  a  growth  of  hazel-brush.  He 
bound  up  his  wounded  leg,  and  dragged  him- 
self on  his  hands  and  knees  laboriously  to 
the  outcrop.  He  did  not  look  up  ;  since  his 
pick  had  crashed  into  Marshall's  brain  he 
had  but  one  blind  thought  before  him  —  to 
escape  at  once  !  That  his  revenge  and  com- 
pensation would  come  later  he  never  doubted. 
He  limped  and  crept,  rolled  and  fell,  from 
bush  to  bush  through  the  sloping  thickets, 
until  he  saw  the  red  road  a  few  feet  below 
him. 

If  he  only  had  a  horse  he  could  put  miles 


THREE  PARTNERS.  337 

between  him  and  any  present  pursuit! 
Why  should  he  not  have  one  ?  The  road 
was  frequented  by  solitary  horsemen  — 
miners  and  Mexicans.  He  had  his  revolver 
with  him ;  what  mattered  the  life  of  another 
man  if  he  escaped  from  the  consequences  of 
the  one  he  had  just  taken  ?  He  heard  the 
clatter  of  hoofs ;  two  priests  on  mules  rode 
slowly  by ;  he  ground  his  teeth  with  disap- 
pointment. But  they  had  scarcely  passed 
before  another  and  more  rapid  clatter  came 
from  their  rear.  It  was  a  lad  on  horseback. 
He  started.  It  was  his  own  son ! 

He  remembered  in  a  flash  how  the  boy 
had  said  he  was  coming  to  meet  the  padre 
at  the  station  on  that  day.  His  first  im- 
pulse was  to  hide  himself,  his  wound,  and 
his  defeat  from  the  lad,  but  the  blind  idea 
of  escape  was  still  paramount.  He  leaned 
over  the  bank  and  called  to  him.  The  as- 
tonished lad  cantered  eagerly  to  his  side. 

"  Give  me  your  horse,  Eddy,"  said  the 
father  ;  "  I  'm  in  bad  luck,  and  must  get." 

The  boy  glanced  at  his  father's  face,  at 
his  tattered  garments  and  bandaged  leg, 
and  read  the  whole  stoiy.  It  was  a  familiar 
page  to  him.  He  paled  first  and  then  flushed, 


338  THESE  PAETNEES. 

and  then,  with  an  odd  glitter  in  his  eyes, 
said,  "  Take  me  with  you,  father.  Do ! 
You  always  did  before.  I  '11  bring  you. 
luck." 

Desperation  is  superstitious.  Why  not 
take  him  ?  They  had  been  lucky  before, 
and  the  two  together  might  confound  any 
description  of  their  identity  to  the  pursuers. 
"  Help  me  up,  Eddy,  and  then  get  up  before 
me." 

"  Behind,  you  mean,"  said  the  boy,  with 
a  laugh,  as  he  helped  his  father  into  the 
saddle. 

"  No,"  said  Steptoe  harshly.  "  Before 
me,  —  do  you  hear  ?  And  if  anything  hap- 
pens behind  you,  don't  look !  If  I  drop  off, 
don't  stop!  Don't  get  down,  but  go  on 
and  leave  me.  Do  you  understand  ?  "  he 
repeated  almost  savagely. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  boy  tremulously. 

"  All  right,"  said  the  father,  with  a  softer 
voice,  as  he  passed  his  one  arm  round  the 
boy's  body  and  lifted  the  reins.  "  Hold 
tight  when  we  come  to  the  cross-roads,  for 
we  '11  take  the  first  turn,  for  old  luck's  sake, 
to  the  Mission." 

They  were  the  last  words  exchanged  be- 


THESE  PARTNERS.  339 

tween  them,  for  as  they  wheeled  rapidly  to 
the  left  at  the  cross-roads,  Jack  Hamlin  and 
Demorest  swung  as  quickly  out  of  another 
road  to  the  right  immediately  behind  them. 
Jack's  challenge  to  "  Halt !  "  was  only  an- 
swered by  Step  toe's  horse  springing  forward 
under  the  sharp  lash  of  the  riata. 

"  Hold  up !  "  said  Jack  suddenly,  laying 
his  hand  upon  the  rifle  which  Demorest  had 
lifted  to  his  shoulder.  "  He 's  carrying 
some  one,  —  a  wounded  comrade,  I  reckon. 
We  don't  want  him.  Swing  out  and  go  for 
the  horse ;  well  forward,  in  the  neck  or 
shoulder." 

Demorest  swung  far  out  to  the  right  of 
the  road  and  raised  his  rifle.  As  it  cracked 
Steptoe's  horse  seemed  to  have  suddenly 
struck  some  obstacle  ahead  of  him  rather 
than  to  have  been  hit  himself ,  for  his  head 
went  down  with  his  fore  feet  under  him,  and 
he  turned  a  half -somersault  on  the  road, 
flinging  his  two  riders  a  dozen  feet  away. 

Steptoe  scrambled  to  his  knees,  revolver 
in  hand,  but  the  other  figure  never  moved. 
"  Hands  up !  "  said  Jack,  sighting  his  own 
weapon.  The  reports  seemed  simultaneous, 
but  Jack's  bullet  had  pierced  Steptoe's  brain 


340  THREE  PARTNERS. 

even  before  the  outlaw's  pistol  exploded 
harmlessly  in  the  air. 

The  two  men  dismounted,  but  by  a  com- 
mon instinct  they  both  ran  to  the  prostrate 
figure  that  had  never  moved. 

"  By  God  !  it 's  a  boy ! "  said  Jack,  lean- 
ing over  the  body  and  lifting  the  shoulders 
from  which  the  head  hung  loosely.  "  Neck 
broken  and  dead  as  his  pal."  Suddenly  he 
started,  and,  to  Demorest's  astonishment, 
began  hurriedly  pulling  off  the  glove  from 
the  boy's  limp  right  hand. 

"  What  are  you  doing  ?  "  demanded  De- 
morest  in  creeping  horror. 

"  Look  !  "  said  Jack,  as  he  laid  bare  the 
small  white  hand.  The  first  two  fingers 
were  merely  unsightly  stumps  that  had  been 
hidden  in  the  padded  glove. 

•'  Good  God  !  Van  Loo's  brother !  "  said 
Demorest,  recoiling. 

"  No !  "  said  Jack,  with  a  grim  face,  "  it 's 
what  I  have  long  suspected,  —  it 's  Steptoe's 
son!" 

"  His  son  ?  "  repeated  Demorest. 

"  Yes,"  said  Jack  ;  and  he  added,  after 
looking  at  the  two  bodies  with  a  long-drawn 
whistle  of  concern,  "  and  I  would  n't,  if  I 
were  you,  say  anything  of  this  to  Barker." 


TUREE  PARTNERS.  341 

"  Why  ?  "  said  Demorest. 

"  Well,"  returned  Jack,  "  when  our 
scrimmage  was  over  down  there,  and  they 
brought  the  news  to  Barker  that  his  wife 
and  her  diamonds  were  burnt  up  at  the 
hotel,  you  remember  that  they  said  that 
Mrs.  Horncastle  had  saved  his  boy." 

"  Yes,"  said  Demorest ;  "  but  what  has 
that  to  do  with  it  ?  " 

"  Nothing,  I  reckon,"  said  Jack,  with  a 
slight  shrug  of  his  shoulders,  "  only  Mrs. 
Horncastle  was  the  mother  of  the  boy  that 's 
lying  there." 

•         ••••••• 

Two  years  later  as  Demorest  and  Stacy 
sat  before  the  fire  in  the  old  cabin  on  Mar- 
shall's claim  —  now  legally  their  own  — 
they  looked  from  the  door  beyond  the  great 
bulk  of  Black  Spur  to  the  pallid  snow-line 
of  the  Sierras,  still  as  remote  and  unchanged 
to  them  as  when  they  had  gazed  upon  it 
from  Heavy  Tree  Hill.  And,  for  the  mat- 
ter of  that,  they  themselves  seemed  to  have 
been  left  so  unchanged  that  even  now,  as 
in  the  old  days,  it  was  Barker's  voice  as  he 
greeted  them  from  the  darkening  trail 
alone  broke  their  reverie. 


842  THREE  PARTNEE8. 

"  "Well,"  said  Demorest  cheerfully,  "  your 
usual  luck,  Barker  boy ! "  for  they  already 
saw  in  his  face  the  happy  light  they  had 
once  seen  there  on  an  eventful  night  seven 
years  ago. 

"  I  'm  to  be  married  to  Mrs.  Horncastle 
next  month,"  he  said  breathlessly,  "  and 
little  Sta  loves  her  already  as  if  she  was 
his  own  mother.  Wish  me  joy." 

A  slight  shadow  passed  over  Stacy's  face ; 
but  his  hand  was  the  first  to  grasp  Barker's, 
and  his  voice  the  first  to  say  "  Amen  I  " 


UNDER  THE   REDWOODS 


CONTENTS 

rial 

JIMMY'S  Bio  BBOTHEE  FHOM  CALIFORNIA  .  .  1 
THE  YOUNGEST  Miss  PIPEE  ....  39 
A  WIDOW  OF  THE  SANTA  ANA  VALLEY  .  .71 
THE  MKUMAID  OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT  .  .  103 

UNDEK  THE  EAVES 140 

How  REUBEN  ALLEN  "  SAW  LIFE  "  IN  SAN  FBAH- 

cisco 177 

THKEE  VAGABONDS  OF  TRINIDAD  .  .  .  .211 
A  VISION  OF  THE  FOUNTAIN  ....  237 
A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  LINE  .....  257 
BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO  .  .  .  298 


UNDER  THE  REDWOODS 


JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER  FROM 
CALIFORNIA 

As  night  crept  up  from  the  valley  that 
stormy  afternoon,  Sawyer's  Ledge  was  at 
first  quite  blotted  out  by  wind  and  rain, 
but  presently  reappeared  in  little  nebulous 
star-like  points  along  the  mountain  side,  as 
the  straggling  cabins  of  the  settlement  were 
one  by  one  lit  up  by  the  miners  returning 
from  tunnel  and  claim.  These  stars  were 
of  varying  brilliancy  that  evening,  two  no- 
tably so  —  one  that  eventually  resolved  it- 
self into  a  many-candled  illumination  of  a 
cabin  of  evident  festivity;  the  other  into  a 
glimmering  taper  in  the  window  of  a  silent 
one.  They  might  have  represented  the  ex- 
treme mutations  of  fortune  in  the  settlement 
that  night:  the  celebration  of  a  strike  by 
Robert  Falloner,  a  lucky  miner;  and  the 
sick-bed  of  Dick  Lasham,  an  unlucky  one. 


2  JIMMTS   BIG   BROTHER 

The  latter  was,  however,  not  quite  alone. 
He  was  ministered  to  by  Daddy  Folsom,  a 
weak  but  emotional  and  aggressively  hope- 
ful neighbor,  who  was  sitting  beside  the 
wooden  bunk  whereon  the  invalid  lay.  Yet 
there  was  something  perfunctory  in  his  atti- 
tude: his  eyes  were  continually  straying  to 
the  window,  whence  the  illuminated  Falloner 
festivities  could  be  seen  between  the  trees, 
and  his  ears  were  more  intent  on  the  songs 
and  laughter  that  came  faintly  from  the 
distance  than  on  the  feverish  breathing  and 
unintelligible  moans  of  the  sufferer. 

Nevertheless,  he  looked  troubled  equally 
by  the  condition  of  his  charge  and  by  his 
own  enforced  absence  from  the  revels.  A 
more  impatient  moan  from  the  sick  man, 
however,  brought  a  change  to  his  abstracted 
face,  and  he  turned  to  him  with  an  exagger- 
ated expression  of  sympathy. 

"In  course!  Lordy!  I  know  jest  what 
those  pains  are:  kinder  ez  ef  you  was  havin' 
a  tooth  pulled  that  had  roots  branchin'  all 
over  ye !  My !  I  've  jest  had  'em  so  bad  I 
couldn't  keep  from  yellin' !  That's  hot 
rheumatics!  Yes,  sir,  I  oughter  know! 
And"  (confidentially)  "the  sing'ler  thing 
about  'em  is  that  they  get  worse  jest  as 


FROM   CALIFORNIA  3 

they  're  going  off  —  sorter  wringin'  yer 
hand  and  punchin'  ye  in  the  back  to  say 
'  Good-by. '  There!"  he  continued,  as  the 
man  sank  exhaustedly  back  on  his  rude  pil- 
low of  flour-sacks.  "There!  didn't  I  tell 
ye  ?  Ye  '11  be  all  right  in  a  minit,  and  ez 
chipper  ez  a  jay  bird  in  the  mornin'.  Oh, 
don't  tell  me  about  rheumatics  —  I 've  bin 
thar!  On'y  mine  was  the  cold  kind  —  that 
hangs  on  longest  —  yours  is  the  hot,  that 
burns  itself  up  in  no  time!  " 

If  the  flushed  face  and  bright  eyes  of 
Lasham  were  not  enough  to  corroborate  this 
symptom  of  high  fever,  the  quick,  wander- 
ing laugh  he  gave  would  have  indicated  the 
point  of  delirium.  But  the  too  optimistic 
Daddy  Folsom  referred  this  act  to  improve- 
ment, and  went  on  cheerfully:  "Yes,  sir, 
you  're  better  now,  and  "  —  here  he  assumed 
an  air  of  cautious  deliberation,  extravagant, 
as  all  his  assumptions  were —  "I  ain't  say- 
in'  that  —  ef  —  you  —  was  —  to  —  rise  — 
up"  (very  slowly)  "and  heave  a  blanket  or 
two  over  your  shoulders  —  jest  by  way  o' 
caution,  you  know  —  and  leanin'  on  me, 
kinder  meander  over  to  Bob  Falloner's  cabin 
and  the  boys,  it  would  n't  do  you  a  heap  o' 
good.  Changes  o'  this  kind  is  often  pre- 


4  JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER 

scribed  by  the  faculty."  Another  moan  from 
the  sufferer,  however,  here  apparently  cor- 
rected Daddy's  too  favorable  prognosis. 
"Oh,  all  right!  Well,  perhaps  ye  know 
best;  and  I'll  jest  run  over  to  Bob's  and 
say  how  as  ye  ain't  comin',  and  will  be  back 
in  a  jiffy!" 

"The  letter,"  said  the  sick  man  hur- 
riedly, "the  letter,  the  letter!  " 

Daddy  leaned  suddenly  over  the  bed.  It 
was  impossible  for  even  his  hopefulness  to 
avoid  the  fact  that  Lasham  was  delirious. 
It  was  a  strong  factor  in  the  case  —  one 
that  would  certainly  justify  his  going  over 
to  Falloner's  with  the  news.  For  the  pre- 
sent moment,  however,  this  aberration  was 
to  be  accepted  cheerfully  and  humored  after 
Daddy's  own  fashion.  "Of  course  —  the 
letter,  the  letter,"  he  said  convincingly; 
"that's  what  the  boys  hev  bin  singin'  jest 
now  — 

'  Good-by,  Charley  ;  when  you  are  away, 
Write  me  a  letter,  love ;  send  me  a  letter,  love ! ' 

That 's  what  you  heard,  and  a  mighty  purty 
song  it  is  too,  and  kinder  clings  to  you. 
It 's  wonderful  how  these  things  gets  in 
your  head." 

"  The    letter  —  write  —  send    money  — 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  ft 

money  —  money,  and  the  photograph  —  the 
photograph  —  photograph  —  money,"  con- 
tinued the  sick  man,  in  the  rapid  reiteration 
of  delirium. 

"  In  course  you  will  —  to-morrow  —  when 
the  mail  goes,"  returned  Daddy  soothingly; 
"plenty  of  them.  Jest  now  you  try  to  get  a 
snooze,  will  ye  ?  Hoi'  on !  —  take  some  o' 
this." 

There  was  an  anodyne  mixture  on  the 
rude  shelf,  which  the  doctor  had  left  on  his 
morning  visit.  Daddy  had  a  comfortable 
belief  that  what  would  relieve  pain  would 
also  check  delirium,  and  he  accordingly 
measured  out  a  dose  with  a  liberal  margin 
to  allow  of  waste  by  the  patient  in  swallow- 
ing in  his  semi-conscious  state.  As  he  lay 
more  quiet,  muttering  still,  but  now  unin- 
telligibly, Daddy,  waiting  for  a  more  com- 
plete unconsciousness  and  the  opportunity 
to  slip  away  to  Falloner's,  cast  his  eyes 
around  the  cabin.  He  noticed  now  for  the 
first  time  since  his  entrance  that  a  crumpled 
envelope  bearing  a  Western  post-mark  was 
lying  at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  Daddy  knew 
that  the  tri-weekly  post  had  arrived  an  hour 
before  he  came,  and  that  Lasham  had  evi- 
dently received  a  letter.  Sure  enough  the 


6  JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER 

letter  itself  was  lying  against  the  wall  be- 
side him.  It  was  open.  Daddy  felt  justi- 
fied in  reading  it. 

It  was  curt  and  business-like,  stating  that 
unless  Lasham  at  once  sent  a  remittance  for 
the  support  of  his  brother  and  sister  —  two 
children  in  charge  of  the  writer  —  they 
must  find  a  home  elsewhere.  That  the  ar- 
rears were  long  standing,  and  the  repeated 
promises  of  Lasham  to  send  money  had 
been  unfulfilled.  That  the  writer  could 
stand  it  no  longer.  This  would  be  his  last 
communication  unless  the  money  were  sent 
forthwith. 

It  was  by  no  means  a  novel  or,  under 
the  circumstances,  a  shocking  disclosure  to 
Daddy.  He  had  seen  similar  missives  from 
daughters,  and  even  wives,  consequent  on 
the  varying  fortunes  of  his  neighbors;  no 
one  knew  better  than  he  the  uncertainties 
of  a  miner's  prospects,  and  yet  the  inevi- 
table hopefulness  that  buoyed  him  up.  He 
tossed  it  aside  impatiently,  when  his  eye 
caught  a  strip  of  paper  he  had  overlooked 
lying  upon  the  blanket  near  the  envelope. 
It  contained  a  few  lines  in  an  unformed 
boyish  hand  addressed  to  "my  brother," 
and  evidently  slipped  into  the  letter  after  it 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  " 

was  written.     By  the  uncertain  candlelight 
Daddy  read  as  follows :  — 

Dear  Brother,  Rite  to  me  and  Cissy  rite 
off.  Why  aint  you  done  it?  It's  so  long 
since  you  rote  any.  Mister  Recketts  ses 
you  dont  care  any  more.  Wen  you  rite 
send  your  fotograff.  Folks  here  ses  I  aint 
got  no  big  bruther  any  way,  as  I  disre- 
member  his  looks,  and  cant  say  wots  like 
him.  Cissy's  kryin'  all  along  of  it.  I  've 
got  a  hedake.  William  Walker  make  it 
ake  by  a  bio.  So  no  more  at  present  from 
your  loving  little  bruther  Jim. 

The  quick,  hysteric  laugh  with  which 
Daddy  read  this  was  quite  consistent  with 
his  responsive,  emotional  nature;  so,  too, 
were  the  ready  tears  that  sprang  to  his  eyes. 
He  put  the  candle  down  unsteadily,  with  a 
casual  glance  at  the  sick  man.  It  was  no- 
table, however,  that  this  look  contained  less 
sympathy  for  the  ailing  "big  brother  "  than 
his  emotion  might  have  suggested.  For 
Daddy  was  carried  quite  away  by  his  own 
mental  picture  of  the  helpless  children,  and 
eager  only  to  relate  his  impressions  of  the 
incident.  He  cast  another  glance  at  the 


8  JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER 

invalid,  thrust  the  papers  into  his  pocket, 
and  clapping  on  his  hat  slipped  from  the 
cabin  and  ran  to  the  house  of  festivity. 
Yet  it  was  characteristic  of  the  man,  and  so 
engrossed  was  he  by  his  one  idea,  that  to 
the  usual  inquiries  regarding  his  patient  he 
answered,  "He  's  all  right,"  and  plunged  at 
once  into  the  incident  of  the  dunning  letter, 
reserving  —  with  the  instinct  of  an  emo- 
tional artist  —  the  child's  missive  until  the 
last.  As  he  expected,  the  money  demand 
was  received  with  indignant  criticisms  of 
the  writer. 

"That 's  just  like  'em  in  the  States,"  said 
Captain  Fletcher;  "darned  if  they  don't 
believe  we  've  only  got  to  bore  a  hole  in  the 
ground  and  snake  out  a  hundred  dollars. 
Why,  there 's  my  wife  —  with  a  heap  of 
hoss  sense  in  everything  else  —  is  allus  won- 
derin'  why  I  can't  rake  in  a  cool  fifty  be- 
twixt one  steamer  day  and  another." 

"That's  nothin'  to  my  old  dad,"  inter- 
rupted Gus  Houston,  the  "infant"  of  the 
camp,  a  bright-eyed  young  fellow  of  twenty; 
"why,  he  wrote  to  me  yesterday  that  if  I  'd 
only  pick  up  a  single  piece  of  gold  every 
day  and  just  put  it  aside,  sayin'  '  That 's  for 
popper  and  rnommer,'  and  not  fool  it  away 
—  it  would  be  all  they  'd  ask  of  me." 


FROM  CALIFORNIA 

"That's  so,"  added  another;  "these  ig- 
norant relations  is  just  the  ruin  o'  the  min- 
ing industry.  Bob  Falloner  hez  bin  lucky 
in  his  strike  to-day,  but  he  's  a  darned  sight 
luckier  in  being  without  kith  or  kin  that  he 
knows  of." 

Daddy  waited  until  the  momentary  irrita- 
tion had  subsided,  and  then  drew  the  other 
letter  from  his  pocket.  "That  ain't  all, 
boys,"  he  began  in  a  faltering  voice,  but 
gradually  working  himself  up  to  a  pitch  of 
pathos;  "just  as  I  was  thinking  all  them 
very  things,  I  kinder  noticed  this  yer  poor 
little  bit  o'  paper  lyin'  thar  lonesome  like 
and  forgotten,  and  I  —  read  it  —  and  well 
—  gentlemen  —  it  just  choked  me  right 
up!  "  He  stopped,  and  his  voice  faltered. 

"Go  slow,  Daddy,  go  slow!  "  said  an  au- 
ditor smilingly.  It  was  evident  that  Dad- 
dy's sympathetic  weakness  was  well  known. 

Daddy  read  the  child's  letter.  But,  un- 
fortunately, what  with  his  real  emotion  and 
the  intoxication  of  an  audience,  he  read  it 
extravagantly,  and  interpolated  a  child's 
lisp  (on  no  authority  whatever),  and  a  sim- 
ulated infantile  delivery,  which,  I  fear,  at 
first  provoked  the  smiles  rather  than  the 
tears  of  his  audience.  Nevertheless,  at  its 


10  JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER 

conclusion  the  little  note  was  handed  round 
the  party,  and  then  there  was  a  moment  of 
thoughtful  silence. 

"Tell  you  what  it  is,  boys,"  said  Fletcher, 
looking  around  the  table,  "we  ought  to  be 
doin'  suthin'  for  them  kids  right  off!  Did 
you,"  turning  to  Daddy,  "say  anythin' 
about  this  to  Dick?" 

"Nary  —  why,  he's  clean  off  his  head 
with  fever  —  don't  understand  a  word  — 
and  just  babbles,"  returned  Daddy,  forget- 
ful of  his  roseate  diagnosis  a  moment  ago, 
"and  hasn't  got  a  cent." 

"  We  must  make  up  what  we  can  amongst 
us  afore  the  mail  goes  to-night,"  said  the 
"infant,"  feeling  hurriedly  in  his  pockets. 
"Come,  ante  up,  gentlemen,"  he  added,  lay- 
ing the  contents  of  his  buckskin  purse  upon 
the  table. 

"Hold  on,  boys,"  said  a  quiet  voice.  It 
was  their  host  Falloner,  who  had  just  risen 
and  was  slipping  on  his  oilskin  coat. 
"You've  got  enough  to  do,  I  reckon,  to 
look  after  your  own  folks.  I  've  none ! 
Let  this  be  my  affair.  I  've  got  to  go  to 
the  Express  Office  anyhow  to  see  about  my 
passage  home,  and  I  '11  just  get  a  draft  for 
a  hundred  dollars  for  that  old  skeesicks  — 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  11 

what 's  his  blamed  name  ?     Oh,  Ricketts  " 

—  he  made  a  memorandum  from  the  letter 

—  "and  I'll  send  it   by  express.     Mean- 
time, you  fellows  sit  down  there  and  write 
something  —  you  know  what  —  saying  that 
Dick  's  hurt  his  hand  and  can't  write  —  you 
know;  but  asked  you  to  send  a  draft,  which 
you're    doing.     Sabe?     That's    all!     I'll 
skip  over  to  the  express  now  and  get  the 
draft  off,  and  you  can  mail  the  letter  an 
hour  later.     So  put  your  dust  back  in  your 
pockets  and  help  yourselves  to  the  whiskey 
while  I  'm  gone."     He  clapped  his  hat  on 
his  head  and  disappeared. 

"There  goes  a  white  man,  you  bet!  "  said 
Fletcher  admiringly,  as  the  door  closed  be- 
hind their  host.  "Now,  boys,"  he  added, 
drawing  a  chair  to  the  table,  "let 's  get  this 
yer  letter  off,  and  then  go  back  to  our 
game." 

Pens  and  ink  were  produced,  and  an  ani- 
mated discussion  ensued  as  to  the  matter  to 
be  conveyed.  Daddy's  plea  for  an  extended 
explanatory  and  sympathetic  communica- 
tion was  overruled,  and  the  letter  was  writ- 
ten to  Ricketts  on  the  simple  lines  sug- 
gested by  Falloner. 

"But  what  about  poor  little  Jim's  letter? 


12  JIMMTS  BIG  BROTHER 

That  ought  to  be  answered,"  said  Daddy 
pathetically. 

"If  Dick  hurt  his  hand  so  he  can't  write 
to  Ricketts,  how  in  thunder  is  he  goin'  to 
write  to  Jim?  "  was  the  reply. 

"But  suthin'  oughter  be  said  to  the  poor 
kid,"  urged  Daddy  piteously. 

"Well,  write  it  yourself  —  you  and  Gus 
Houston  make  up  somethin'  together.  I  'm 
going  to  win  some  money,"  retorted  Fletcher, 
returning  to  the  card-table,  where  he  was 
presently  followed  by  all  but  Daddy  and 
Houston. 

"Ye  can't  write  it  in  Dick's  name,  be- 
cause that  little  brother  knows  Dick's  hand- 
writing, even  if  he  don't  remember  his  face. 
See?"  suggested  Houston. 

"That's  so,"  said  Daddy  dubiously; 
"but,"  he  added,  with  elastic  cheerfulness, 
"we  can  write  that  Dick  *  says.'  See?" 

"Your  head's  level,  old  man!  Just  you 
wade  in  on  that." 

Daddy  seized  the  pen  and  "waded  in." 
Into  somewhat  deep  and  difficult  water, 
I  fancy,  for  some  of  it  splashed  into  his 
eyes,  and  he  sniffled  once  or  twice  as  he 
wrote.  "Suthin'  like  this,"  he  said,  after  a 
pause : — 


FROM   CALIFORNIA  13 

DEAR  LITTLE  JIMMIE,  —  Your  big  bro- 
ther havin'  hurt  his  hand,  wants  me  to  tell 
you  that  other  ways  he  is  all  hunky  and  Al. 
He  says  he  don't  forget  you  and  little  Cissy, 
you  bet!  and  he  's  seudin'  money  to  old 
Ricketts  straight  off.  He  says  don't  you 
and  Cissy  mind  whether  school  keeps  or  not 
as  long  as  big  Brother  Dick  holds  the  lines. 
He  says  he  'd  have  written  before,  but  he  's 
bin  f  oiler  in'  up  a  lead  mighty  close,  and 
expects  to  strike  it  rich  in  a  few  days. 

"You  ain't  got  no  sabe  about  kids,"  said 
Daddy  imperturbably;  "they've  got  to  be 
humored  like  sick  folks.  And  they  want 
everythin'  big  —  they  don't  take  no  stock 
in  things  ez  they  are  —  even  ef  they  hev 
'em  worse  than  they  are.  '  So,'  "  continued 
Daddy,  reading  to  prevent  further  interrup- 
tion, "'  he  says  you  're  just  to  keep  your 
eyes  skinned  lookin'  out  for  him  comin' 
home  any  time  —  day  or  night.  All  you  've 
got  to  do  is  to  sit  up  and  wait.  He  might 
come  and  even  snake  you  out  of  your  beds ! 
He  might  come  with  four  white  horses  and 
a  nigger  driver,  or  he  might  come  disguised 
as  an  ornary  tramp.  Only  you  've  got  to 
be  keen  on  watchin'.'  (Ye  see,"  inter- 


14  JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER 

rupted  Daddy  explanatorily,  "  that  '11  jest 
keep  them  kids  lively.)  '  He  says  Cis- 
sy's to  stop  cryin'  right  off,  and  if  Willie 
Walker  hits  yer  on  the  right  cheek  you  just 
slug  out  with  your  left  fist,  'cordin'  to 
Scripter.'  Gosh,"  ejaculated  Daddy,  stop- 
ping suddenly  and  gazing  anxiously  at 
Houston,  "there's  that  blamed  photograph 
—  I  clean  forgot  that." 

"And  Dick  hasn't  got  one  in  the  shop, 
and  never  had,"  returned  Houston  emphati- 
cally. "Golly!  that  stumps  us!  Unless," 
he  added,  with  diabolical  thoughtfulness, 
"we  take  Bob's?  The  kids  don't  remember 
Dick's  face,  and  Bob  's  about  the  same  age. 
And  it 's  a  regular  star  picture  —  you  bet! 
Bob  had  it  taken  in  Sacramento  —  in  all  his 
war  paint.  See !  "  He  indicated  a  photo- 
graph pinned  against  the  wall  —  a  really 
striking  likeness  which  did  full  justice  to 
Bob's  long  silken  mustache  and  large, 
brown  determined  eyes.  "I  '11  snake  it  off 
while  they  ain't  lookin',  and  you  jam  it  in 
the  letter.  Bob  won't  miss  it,  and  we  can 
fix  it  up  with  Dick  after  he  's  well,  and  send 
another." 

Daddy  silently  grasped  the  "infant's" 
hand,  who  presently  secured  the  photograph 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  15 

without  attracting  attention  from  the  card- 
players.  It  was  promptly  inclosed  in  the 
letter,  addressed  to  Master  James  Lasham. 
The  "infant"  started  with  it  to  the  post- 
office,  and  Daddy  Folsom  returned  to  Lash- 
am 's  cabin  to  relieve  the  watcher  that  had 
been  detached  from  Falloner's  to  take  his 
place  beside  the  sick  man. 

Meanwhile  the  rain  fell  steadily  and  the 
shadows  crept  higher  and  higher  up  the 
mountain.  Towards  midnight  the  star 
points  faded  out  one  by  one  over  Sawyer's 
Ledge  even  as  they  had  come,  with  the  dif- 
ference that  the  illumination  of  Falloner's 
cabin  was  extinguished  first,  while  the  dim 
light  of  Lasham 's  increased  in  number. 
Later,  two  stars  seemed  to  shoot  from  the 
centre  of  the  ledge,  trailing  along  the  de- 
scent, until  they  were  lost  in  the  obscurity 
of  the  slope  —  the  lights  of  the  stage-coach 
to  Sacramento  carrying  the  mail  and  Rob- 
ert Falloner.  They  met  and  passed  two 
fainter  lights  toiling  up  the  road  —  the 
buggy  lights  of  the  doctor,  hastily  sum- 
moned from  Carterville  to  the  bedside  of 
the  dying  Dick  Lasham. 

The  slowing  up  of  his  train  caused  Bob 


16  JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER 

Falloner  to  start  from  a  half  doze  in  a 
Western  Pullman  car.  As  he  glanced  from 
his  window  he  could  see  that  the  blinding 
snowstorm  which  had  followed  him  for  the 
past  six  hours  had  at  last  hopelessly  blocked 
the  line.  There  was  no  prospect  beyond 
the  interminable  snowy  level,  the  whirling 
flakes,  and  the  monotonous  palisades  of 
leafless  trees  seen  through  it  to  the  distant 
banks  of  the  Missouri.  It  was  a  prospect 
that  the  mountain -bred  Falloner  was  begin- 
ning to  loathe,  and1  although  it  was  scarcely 
six  weeks  since  he  left  California,  he  was 
already  looking  back  regretfully  to  the  deep 
slopes  and  the  free  song  of  the  serried  ranks 
of  pines. 

The  intense  cold  had  chilled  his  temperate 
blood,  even  as  the  rigors  and  conventions 
of  Eastern  life  had  checked  his  sincerity 
and  spontaneous  flow  of  animal  spirits  be- 
gotten in  the  frank  intercourse  and  brother- 
hood of  camps.  He  had  just  fled  from  the 
artificialities  of  the  great  Atlantic  cities  to 
seek  out  some  Western  farming  lauds  in 
which  he  might  put  his  capital  and  energies. 
The  unlooked-for  interruption  of  his  pro- 
gress by  a  long-forgotten  climate  only  deep- 
ened his  discontent.  And  now  —  that  train 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  17 

was  actually  backing!  It  appeared  they 
must  return  to  the  last  station  to  wait  for 
a  snow-plough  to  clear  the  line.  It  was, 
explained  the  conductor,  barely  a  mile  from 
Shepherdstown,  where  there  was  a  good 
hotel  and  a  chance  of  breaking  the  journey 
for  the  night. 

Shepherdstown !  The  name  touched  some 
dim  chord  in  Bob  Falloner's  memory  and 
conscience  —  yet  one  that  was  vague.  Then 
he  suddenly  remembered  that  before  leaving 
New  York  he  had  received  a  letter  from 
Houston  informing  him  of  Lasham's  death, 
reminding  him  of  his  previous  bounty,  and 
begging  him  —  if  he  went  West  —  to  break 
the  news  to  the  Lasham  family.  There  was 
also  some  allusion  to  a  joke  about  his  (Bob's) 
photograph,  which  he  had  dismissed  as  un- 
important, and  even  now  could  not  remem- 
ber clearly.  For  a  few  moments  his  con- 
science pricked  him  that  he  should  have  for- 
gotten it  all,  but  now  he  could  make  amends 
by  this  providential  delay.  It  was  not  a 
task  to  his  liking;  in  any  other  circum- 
stances he  would  have  written,  but  he  would 
not  shirk  it  now. 

Shepherdstown  was  on  the  main  line  of 
the  Kansas  Pacific  Road,  and  as  he  alighted 


18  JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER 

at  its  station,  the  big  through  trains  from 
San  Francisco  swept  out  of  the  stormy  dis- 
tance and  stopped  also.  He  remembered, 
as  he  mingled  with  the  passengers,  hearing 
a  childish  voice  ask  if  this  was  the  Califor- 
nian  train.  He  remembered  hearing  the 
amused  and  patient  reply  of  the  station- 
master:  "Yes,  sonny  —  here  she  is  again, 
and  here  's  her  passengers,"  as  he  got  into 
the  omnibus  and  drove  to  the  hotel.  Here 
he  resolved  to  perform  his  disagreeable  duty 
as  quickly  as  possible,  and  on  his  way  to 
his  room  stopped  for  a  moment  at  the  office 
to  ask  for  Bicketts'  address.  The  clerk, 
after  a  quick  glance  of  curiosity  at  his  new 
guest,  gave  it  to  him  readily,  with  a  some- 
what familiar  smile.  It  struck  Falloner 
also  as  being  odd  that  he  had  not  been 
asked  to  write  his  name  on  the  hotel  regis- 
ter, but  this  was  a  saving  of  time  he  was 
not  disposed  to  question,  as  he  had  already 
determined  to  make  his  visit  to  Ricketts  at 
once,  before  dinner.  It  was  still  early  even- 
ing. 

He  was  washing  his  hands  in  his  bedroom 
when  there  came  a  light  tap  at  his  sitting- 
room  door.  Falloner  quickly  resumed  his 
coat  and  entered  the  sitting-room  as  the 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  19 

porter  ushered  in  a  young  lady  holding  a 
small  boy  by  the  hand.  But,  to  Falloner's 
utter  consternation,  no  sooner  had  the  door 
closed  on  the  servant  than  the  boy,  with 
a  half -apologetic  glance  at  the  young  lady, 
uttered  a  childish  cry,  broke  from  her,  and 
calling,  "Dick!  Dick!"  ran  forward  and 
leaped  into  Falloner's  arms. 

The  mere  shock  of  the  onset  and  his  own 
amazement  left  Bob  without  breath  for 
words.  The  boy,  with  arms  convulsively 
clasping  his  body,  was  imprinting  kisses 
on  Bob's  waistcoat  in  default  of  reaching 
his  face.  At  last  Falloner  managed  gently 
but  firmly  to  free  himself,  and  turned  a 
half-appealing,  half-embarrassed  look  upon 
the  young  lady,  whose  own  face,  however, 
suddenly  flushed  pink.  To  add  to  the  con- 
fusion, the  boy,  in  some  reaction  of  in- 
stinct, suddenly  ran  back  to  her,  frantically 
clutched  at  her  skirts,  and  tried  to  bury  his 
head  in  their  folds. 

"He  don't  love  me,"  he  sobbed.  "He 
don't  care  for  me  any  more." 

The  face  of  the  young  girl  changed.  It 
was  a  pretty  face  in  its  flushing;  in  the 
paleness  and  thoughtfulness  that  overcast  it 
it  was  a  striking  face,  and  Bob's  attention 


20  JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER 

was  for  a  moment  distracted  from  the  gro- 
tesqueness  of  the  situation.  Leaning  over 
the  boy  she  said  in  a  caressing  yet  authori- 
tative voice,  "Kun  away  for  a  moment, 
dear,  until  I  call  you,"  opening  the  door 
for  him  in  a  maternal  way  so  inconsistent 
with  the  youthfulness  of  her  figure  that  it 
struck  him  even  in  his  confusion.  There 
was  something  also  in  her  dress  and  car- 
riage that  equally  affected  him:  her  gar- 
ments were  somewhat  old-fashioned  in  style, 
yet  of  good  material,  with  an  odd  incon- 
gruity to  the  climate  and  season. 

Under  her  rough  outer  cloak  she  wore  a 
polka  jacket  and  the  thinnest  of  summer 
blouses;  and  her  hat,  though  dark,  was  of 
rough  straw,  plainly  trimmed.  Neverthe- 
less, these  peculiarities  were  carried  off 
with  an  air  of  breeding  and  self-possession 
that  was  unmistakable.  It  was  possible 
that  her  cool  self-possession  might  have 
been  due  to  some  instinctive  antagonism, 
for  as  she  came  a  step  forward  with  coldly 
and  clearly -opened  gray  eyes,  he  was  vaguely 
conscious  that  she  didn't  like  him.  Never- 
theless, her  manner  was  formally  polite, 
even,  as  he  fancied,  to  the  point  of  irony, 
as  she  began,  in  a  voice  that  occasionally 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  21 

dropped  into  the  lazy  Southern  intonation, 
and  a  speech  that  easily  slipped  at  times 
into  Southern  dialect :  — 

"I  sent  the  child  out  of  the  room,  as  I 
could  see  that  his  advances  were  annoying 
to  you,  and  a  good  deal,  I  reckon,  because 
I  knew  your  reception  of  them  was  still 
more  painful  to  him.  It  is  quite  natural,  I 
dare  say,  you  should  feel  as  you  do,  and  I 
reckon  consistent  with  your  attitude  to- 
wards him.  But  you  must  make  some  al- 
lowance for  the  depth  of  his  feelings,  and 
how  he  has  looked  forward  to  this  meeting. 
When  I  tell  you  that  ever  since  he  received 
your  last  letter,  he  and  his  sister  —  until 
her  illness  kept  her  home  —  have  gone  every 
day  when  the  Pacific  train  was  due  to  the 
station  to  meet  you;  that  they  have  taken 
literally  as  Gospel  truth  every  word  of  your 
letter  "  — 

"My  letter?"  interrupted  Falloner. 

The  young  girl's  scarlet  lip  curled  slightly. 
"  1  beg  your  pardon  —  I  should  have  said 
the  letter  you  dictated.  Of  course  it  was  n't 
in  your  handwriting  —  you  had  hurt  your 
hand,  you  know,"  she  added  ironically. 
"At  all  events,  they  believed  it  all  —  that 
you  were  coming  at  any  moment ;  they  lived 


22  JIMMTS  BIG  BROTHER 

in  that  belief,  and  the  poor  things  went  to 
the  station  with  your  photograph  in  their 
hands  so  that  they  might  be  the  first  to 
recognize  and  greet  you." 

"With  my  photograph?"  interrupted 
Falloner  again. 

The  young  girl's  clear  eyes  darkened 
ominously.  "I  reckon,"  she  said  deliber- 
ately, as  she  slowly  drew  from  her  pocket 
the  photograph  Daddy  Folsom  had  sent, 
"that  that  is  your  photograph.  It  certainly 
seems  an  excellent  likeness,"  she  added,  re- 
garding him  with  a  slight  suggestion  of 
contemptuous  triumph. 

In  an  instant  the  revelation  of  the  whole 
mystery  flashed  upon  him!  The  forgotten 
passage  in  Houston's  letter  about  the  stolen 
photograph  stood  clearly  before  him;  the 
coincidence  of  his  appearance  in  Shepherds- 
town,  and  the  natural  mistake  of  the  chil- 
dren and  their  fair  protector,  were  made 
perfectly  plain.  But  with  this  relief  and 
the  certainty  that  he  could  confound  her 
with  an  explanation  came  a  certain  mis- 
chievous desire  to  prolong  the  situation  and 
increase  his  triumph.  She  certainly  had 
not  shown  him  any  favor. 

"Have  you  got  the  letter  also?"  he  asked 
quietly. 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  23 

She  whisked  it  impatiently  from  her 
pocket  and  handed  it  to  him.  As  he  read 
Daddy's  characteristic  extravagance  and 
recognized  the  familiar  idiosyncrasies  of  his 
old  companions,  he  was  unable  to  restrain 
a  smile.  He  raised  his  eyes,  to  meet  with 
surprise  the  fair  stranger's  leveled  eyebrows 
and  brightly  indignant  eyes,  in  which,  how- 
ever, the  rain  was  fast  gathering  with  the 
lightning. 

"It  may  be  amusing  to  you,  and  I  reckon 
likely  it  was  all  a  California  joke,"  she  said 
with  slightly  trembling  lips;  "I  don't  know 
No'thern  gentlemen  and  their  ways,  and 
you  seem  to  have  forgotten  our  ways  as  you 
have  your  kindred.  Perhaps  all  this  may 
seem  so  funny  to  them:  it  may  not  seem 
funny  to  that  boy  who  is  now  crying  his 
heart  out  in  the  hall;  it  may  not  be  very 
amusing  to  that  poor  Cissy  in  her  sick-bed 
longing  to  see  her  brother.  It  may  be  so 
far  from  amusing  to  her,  that  I  should  hesi- 
tate to  bring  you  there  in  her  excited  condi- 
tion and  subject  her  to  the  pain  that  you 
have  caused  him.  But  I  have  promised 
her;  she  is  already  expecting  us,  and  the 
disappointment  may  be  dangerous,  and  I 
can  only  implore  you  —  for  a  few  moments 


24  JIMMTS  BIG   BROTHER 

at  least  —  to  show  a  little  more  affection 
than  you  feel."  As  he  made  an  impulsive, 
deprecating  gesture,  yet  without  changing 
his  look  of  restrained  amusement,  she 
stopped  him  hopelessly.  "Oh,  of  course, 
yes,  yes,  I  know  it  is  years  since  you  have 
seen  them;  they  have  no  right  to  expect 
more;  only  —  only  —  feeling  as  you  do," 
she  burst  impulsively,  "  why  —  oh,  why  did 
you  come?  " 

Here  was  Bob's  chance.  He  turned  to 
her  politely;  began  gravely,  "I  simply 
came  to  "  —  when  suddenly  his  face 
changed ;  he  stopped  as  if  struck  by  a  blow. 
His  cheek  flushed,  and  then  paled!  Good 
God!  What  had  he  come  for?  To  tell 
them  that  this  brother  they  were  longing  for 
—  living  for  —  perhaps  even  dying  for  — 
was  dead!  In  his  crass  stupidity,  his 
wounded  vanity  over  the  scorn  of  the  young 
girl,  his  anticipation  of  triumph,  he  had 
forgotten  —  totally  forgotten  —  what  that 
triumph  meant!  Perhaps  if  he  had  felt 
more  keenly  the  death  of  Lasham  the 
thought  of  it  would  have  been  uppermost 
in  his  mind ;  but  Lasham  was  not  his  part- 
ner or  associate,  only  a  brother  miner,  and 
his  single  act  of  generosity  was  in  the  ordi- 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  25 

nary  routine  of  camp  life.  If  she  could 
think  him  cold  and  heartless  before,  what 
would  she  think  of  him  now?  The  ab- 
surdity of  her  mistake  had  vanished  in  the 
grim  tragedy  he  had  seemed  to  have  cruelly 
prepared  for  her.  The  thought  struck  him 
so  keenly  that  he  stammered,  faltered,  and 
sank  helplessly  into  a  chair. 

The  shock  that  he  had  received  was  so 
plain  to  her  that  her  own  indignation  went 
out  in  the  breath  of  it.  Her  lip  quivered. 
"Don't  you  mind,"  she  said  hurriedly, 
dropping  into  her  Southern  speech;  "I 
did  n't  go  to  hurt  you,  but  I  was  just  that 
mad  with  the  thought  of  those  pickaninnies, 
and  the  easy  way  you  took  it,  that  I  clean 
forgot  I  'd  no  call  to  catechise  you !  And 
you  don't  know  me  from  the  Queen  of 
Sheba.  Well,"  she  went  on,  still  more 
rapidly,  and  in  odd  distinction  to  her  pre- 
vious formal  slow  Southern  delivery,  "I'm 
the  daughter  of  Colonel  Boutelle,  of  Bayou 
Sara,  Louisiana;  and  his  paw,  and  his  paw 
before  him,  had  a  plantation  there  since  the 
time  of  Adam,  but  he  lost  it  and  six  hun- 
dred niggers  during  the  Wah!  We  were 
pooh  as  pohverty  —  paw  and  maw  and  we 
four  girls  —  and  no  more  idea  of  work  than 


26  JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER 

a  baby.  But  I  had  an  education  at  the 
convent  at  New  Orleans,  and  could  play, 
and  speak  French,  and  I  got  a  place  as 
school-teacher  here;  I  reckon  the  first 
Southern  woman  that  has  taught  school  in 
the  No'th!  Ricketts,  who  used  to  be  our 
steward  at  Bayou  Sara,  told  me  about  the 
pickaninnies,  and  how  helpless  they  were, 
with  only  a  brother  who  occasionally  sent 
them  money  from  California.  I  suppose 
I  cottoned  to  the  pooh  little  things  at  first 
because  I  knew  what  it  was  to  be  alone 
amongst  strangers,  Mr.  Lasham;  I  used  to 
teach  them  at  odd  times,  and  look  after 
them,  and  go  with  them  to  the  train  to  look 
for  you.  Perhaps  Ricketts  made  me  think 
you  didn't  care  for  them;  perhaps  I  was 
wrong  in  thinking  it  was  true,  from  the 
way  you  met  Jimmy  just  now.  But  I  've 
spoken  my  mind  —  and  you  know  why." 
She  ceased  and  walked  to  the  window. 

Falloner  rose.  The  storm  that  had  swept 
through  him  was  over.  The  quick  determi- 
nation, resolute  purpose,  and  infinite  pa- 
tience which  had  made  him  what  he  was 
were  all  there,  and  with  it  a  conscientious- 
ness which  his  selfish  independence  had 
hitherto  kept  dormant.  He  accepted  the 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  27 

situation,  not  passively  —  it  was  not  in  his 
nature  —  but  threw  himself  into  it  with  all 
his  energy. 

"You  were  quite  right,"  he  said,  halting 
a  moment  beside  her;  "I  don't  blame  you, 
and  let  me  hope  that  later  you  may  think 
me  less  to  blame  than  you  do  now.  Now, 
what's  to  be  done?  Clearly,  I've  first  to 
make  it  right  with  Tommy  —  I  mean  Jimmy 
—  and  then  we  must  make  a  straight  dash 
over  to  the  girl!  "Whoop!"  Before  she 
could  understand  from  his  face  the  strange 
change  in  his  voice,  he  had  dashed  out  of 
tlie  room.  In  a  moment  he  reappeared  with 
the  boy  struggling  in  his  arms.  "Think  of 
the  little  scamp  not  knowing  his  own  bro- 
ther!" he  laughed,  giving  the  boy  a  really 
affectionate,  if  slightly  exaggerated  hug, 
"and  expecting  me  to  open  my  arms  to  the 
first  little  boy  who  jumps  into  them!  I  've 
a  great  mind  not  to  give  him  the  present  I 
fetched  all  the  way  from  California.  Wait 
a  moment."  He  dashed  into  the  bedroom, 
opened  his  valise  —  where  he  providentially 
remembered  he  had  kept,  with  a  miner's 
superstition,  the  first  little  nugget  of  gold 
he  had  ever  found  —  seized  the  tiny  bit  of 
quartz  of  gold,  and  dashed  out  again  to  dis- 
play it  before  Jimmy's  eager  eyes. 


28  JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER 

If  the  heartiness,  sympathy,  and  charm- 
ing kindness  of  the  man's  whole  manner 
and  face  convinced,  even  while  it  slightly 
startled,  the  young  girl,  it  was  still  more 
effective  with  the  boy.  Children  are  quick 
to  detect  the  false  ring  of  affected  emotion, 
and  Bob's  was  so  genuine  —  whatever  its 
cause  —  that  it  might  have  easily  passed 
for  a  fraternal  expression  with  harder  crit- 
ics. The  child  trustfully  nestled  against 
him  and  would  have  grasped  the  gold,  but 
the  young  man  whisked  it  into  his  pocket. 
"Not  until  we  've  shown  it  to  our  little  sis- 
ter —  where  we  're  going  now !  I  'm  off  to 
order  a  sleigh."  He  dashed  out  again  to 
the  office  as  if  he  found  some  relief  in  ac- 
tion, or,  as  it  seemed  to  Miss  Boutelle,  to 
avoid  embarrassing  conversation.  When 
he  came  back  again  he  was  carrying  an  im- 
mense bearskin  from  his  luggage.  He  cast 
a  critical  look  at  the  girl's  unseasonable 
attire." 

"  I  shall  wrap  you  and  Jimmy  in  this  — 
you  know  it 's  snowing  frightfully." 

Miss  Boutelle  flushed  a  little.  "I'm 
warm  enough  when  walking,"  she  said 
coldly.  Bob  glanced  at  her  smart  little 
French  shoes,  and  thought  otherwise.  He 


FROM   CALIFORNIA  29 

said  nothing,  but  hastily  bundled  his  two 
guests  downstairs  and  into  the  street.  The 
whirlwind  dance  of  the  snow  made  the  sleigh 
an  indistinct  bulk  in  the  glittering  dark- 
ness, and  as  the  young  girl  for  an  instant 
stood  dazedly  still,  Bob  incontinently  lifted 
her  from  her  feet,  deposited  her  in  the  vehi- 
cle, dropped  Jimmy  in  her  lap,  and  wrapped 
them  both  tightly  in  the  bearskin.  Her 
weight,  which  was  scarcely  more  than  a 
child's,  struck  him  in  that  moment  as  being 
tantalizingly  incongruous  to  the  matronly 
severity  of  her  manner  and  its  strange  effect 
upon  him.  He  then  jumped  in  himself, 
taking  the  direction  from  his  companion, 
and  drove  off  through  the  storm. 

The  wind  and  darkness  were  not  favor- 
able to  conversation,  and  only  once  did  he 
break  the  silence.  "Is  there  any  one  who 
would  be  likely  to  remember  —  me  —  where 
we  are  going?"  he  asked,  in  a  lull  of  the 
Btorm. 

Miss  Boutelle  uncovered  enough  of  her 
face  to  glance  at  him  curiously.  "Hardly! 
You  know  the  children  came  here  from  the 
No'th  after  your  mother's  death,  while  you 
were  in  California." 

"Of  course,"   returned   Bob   hurriedly; 


33  JIMMY'S  BIG  BROTHER 

"I  was  only  thinking  —  you  know  that 
some  of  my  old  friends  might  have  called," 
and  then  collapsed  into  silence. 

After  a  pause  a  voice  came  icily,  although 
under  the  furs:  "Perhaps  you'd  prefer 
that  your  arrival  be  kept  secret  from  the 
public?  But  they  seem  to  have  already 
recognized  you  at  the  hotel  from  your  in- 
quiry about  Ricketts,  and  the  photograph 
Jimmy  had  already  shown  them  two  weeks 
ago."  Bob  remembered  the  clerk's  famil- 
iar manner  and  the  omission  to  ask  him  to 
register.  "But  it  need  go  no  further,  if 
you  like,"  she  added,  with  a  slight  return 
of  her  previous  scorn. 

"I  've  no  reason  for  keeping  it  secret," 
said  Bob  stoutly. 

No  other  words  were  exchanged  until  the 
sleigh  drew  up  before  a  plain  wooden  house 
in  the  suburbs  of  the  town.  Bob  could  see 
at  a  glance  that  it  represented  the  income 
of  some  careful  artisan  or  small  shopkeeper, 
and  that  it  promised  little  for  an  invalid's 
luxurious  comfort.  They  were  ushered  into 
a  chilly  sitting-room,  and  Miss  Boutelle  ran 
upstairs  with  Jimmy  to  prepare  the  invalid 
for  Bob's  appearance.  He  noticed  that  a 
word  dropped  by  the  woman  who  opened 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  31 

the  door  made  the  young  girl's  face  grave 
again,  and  paled  the  color  that  the  storm 
had  buffeted  to  her  cheek.  He  noticed  also 
that  these  plain  surroundings  seemed  only 
to  enhance  her  own  superiority,  and  that 
the  woman  treated  her  with  a  deference  in 
odd  contrast  to  the  ill-concealed  disfavor 
with  which  she  regarded  him.  Strangely 
enough,  this  latter  fact  was  a  relief  to  his 
conscience.  It  would  have  been  terrible  to 
have  received  their  kindness  under  false 
pretenses;  to  take  their  just  blame  of  the 
man  he  personated  seemed  to  mitigate  the 
deceit. 

The  young  girl  rejoined  him  presently 
with  troubled  eyes.  Cissy  was  worse,  and 
only  intermittently  conscious,  but  had  asked 
to  see  him.  It  was  a  short  flight  of  stairs 
to  the  bedroom,  but  before  he  reached  it 
Bob's  heart  beat  faster  than  it  had  in  any 
mountain  climb.  In  one  corner  of  the 
plainly  furnished  room  stood  a  small  truckle 
bed,  and  in  it  lay  the  invalid.  It  needed 
but  a  single  glance  at  her  flushed  face  in 
its  aureole  of  yellow  hair  to  recognize  the 
likeness  to  Jimmy,  although,  added  to  that 
strange  refinement  produced  by  suffering, 
there  was  a  spiritual  exaltation  in  the  child's 


32  JIMMT8  BIG   BROTHER 

look  —  possibly  from  delirium  —  that  awed 
aiid  frightened  him;  an  awful  feeling  that 
he  could  not  lie  to  this  hopeless  creature 
took  possession  of  him,  and  his  step  fal- 
tered. But  she  lifted  her  small  arms  pa- 
thetically towards  him  as  if  she  divined  his 
trouble,  and  he  sank  on  his  knees  beside 
her.  With  a  tiny  finger  curled  around  his 
long  mustache,  she  lay  there  silent.  Her 
face  was  full  of  trustfulness,  happiness,  and 
consciousness  —  but  she  spoke  no  word. 

There  was  a  pause,  and  Falloner,  slrghtly 
lifting  his  head  without  disturbing  that 
faintly  clasping  finger,  beckoned  Miss  Bou- 
telle  to  his  side.  "Can  you  drive?"  he 
said,  in  a  low  voice. 

"Yes." 

"Take  my  sleigh  and  get  the  best  doctor 
in  town  to  come  here  at  once.  Bring  him 
with  you  if  you  can;  if  he  can't  come  at 
once,  drive  home  yourself.  I  will  stay 
here." 

"But"  — hesitated  Miss  Boutelle. 

"I  will  stay  here,"  he  repeated. 

The  door  closed  on  the  young  girl,  and 
Falloner,  still  bending  over  the  child,  pre- 
sently heard  the  sleigh-bells  pass  away  in 
the  storm.  He  still  sat  with  his  bent  head, 


FROM   CALIFORNIA  33 

held  by  the  tiny  clasp  of  those  thin  fingers. 
But  the  child's  eyes  were  fixed  so  intently 
upon  him  that  Mrs.  Kicketts  leaned  over 
the  strangely -assorted  pair  and  said  — 

"It 's  your  brother  Dick,  dearie.  Don't 
you  know  him?" 

The  child's  lips  moved  faintly.  "Dick  's 
dead,"  she  whispered. 

"She's  wandering,"  said  Mrs.  Ricketts. 
"Speak  to  her."  But  Bob,  with  his  eyes 
on  the  child's,  lifted  a  protesting  hand. 
The  little  sufferer's  lips  moved  again.  "It 
is  n't  Dick —  it 's  the  angel  God  sent  to  tell 
me." 

She  spoke  no  more.  And  when  Miss 
Boutelle  returned  with  the  doctor  she  was 
beyond  the  reach  of  finite  voices.  Falloner 
would  have  remained  all  night  with  them, 
but  he  could  see  that  his  presence  in  the 
contracted  household  was  not  desired.  Even 
his  offer  to  take  Jimmy  with  him  to  the 
hotel  was  declined,  and  at  midnight  he  re- 
turned alone. 

What  his  thoughts  were  that  night  may 
be  easily  imagined.  Cissy's  death  had  re- 
moved the  only  cause  he  had  for  concealing 
his  real  identity.  There  was  nothing  more 
to  prevent  his  revealing  all  to  Miss  Boutelle 


34  JIMMTS  BIO  BROTHER 

and  to  offer  to  adopt  the  boy.  But  he  re- 
flected this  could  not  be  done  until  after  the 
funeral,  for  it  was  only  due  to  Cissy's  mem- 
ory that  he  should  still  keep  up  the  role  of 
Dick  Lasham  as  chief  mourner.  If  it  seems 
strange  that  Bob  did  not  at  this  crucial  mo- 
ment take  Miss  Boutelle  into  his  confidence, 
I  fear  it  was  because  he  dreaded  the  per- 
sonal effect  of  the  deceit  he  had  practiced 
upon  her  more  than  any  ethical  considera- 
tion; she  had  softened  considerably  in  her 
attitude  towards  him  that  night;  he  was 
human,  after  all,  and  while  he  felt  his  con- 
duct had  been  unselfish  in  the  main,  he 
dared  not  confess  to  himself  how  much  her 
opinion  had  influenced  him.  He  resolved 
that  after  the  funeral  he  would  continue  his 
journey,  and  write  to  her,  en  route,  a  full 
explanation  of  his  conduct,  inclosing  Dad- 
dy's letter  as  corroborative  evidence.  But 
on  searching  his  letter-case  he  found  that 
he  had  lost  even  that  evidence,  and  he  must 
trust  solely  at  present  to  her  faith  in  his 
improbable  story. 

It  seemed  as  if  his  greatest  sacrifice  was 
demanded  at  the  funeral!  For  it  could 
not  be  disguised  that  the  neighbors  were 
strongly  prejudiced  against  him.  Even  the 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  35 

preacher  improved  the  occasion  to  warn  the 
congregation  against  the  dangers  of  putting 
off  duty  until  too  late.  And  when  Robert 
Falloner,  pale,  but  self -restrained,  left  the 
church  with  Miss  Boutelle,  equally  pale  and 
reserved,  on  his  arm,  he  could  with  diffi- 
culty restrain  his  fury  at  the  passing  of  a 
significant  smile  across  the  faces  of  a  few 
curious  bystanders.  "It  was  Amy  Bou- 
telle, that  was  the  '  penitence  '  that  fetched 
him,  you  bet! "  he  overheard,  a  barely  con- 
cealed whisper;  and  the  reply,  "And  it's 
a  good  thing  she  's  made  out  of  it  too,  for- 
he  's  mighty  rich!  " 

At  the  church  door  he  took  her  cold  hand 
into  his.  "I  am  leaving  to-morrow  morn- 
ing with  Jimmy,"  he  said,  with  a  white 
face.  "Good-by." 

"You  are  quite  right;  good -by,"  she  re- 
plied as  briefly,  but  with  the  faintest  color. 
He  wondered  if  she  had  heard  it  too. 

Whether  she  had  heard  it  or  not,  she 
went  home  with  Mrs.  Ricketts  in  some 
righteous  indignation,  which  found  —  after 
the  young  lady's  habit  —  free  expression. 
Whatever  were  Mr.  Lasham's  faults  of 
omission  it  was  most  un-Christian  to  allude 
to  them  there,  and  an  insult  to  the  poor 


36  JIMMY'S  JBIG  BROTHER 

little  dear's  memory  who  had  forgiven  them. 
Were  she  in  his  shoes  she  would  shake  the 
dust  of  the  town  off  her  feet ;  and  she  hoped 
he  would.  She  was  a  little  softened  on  ar- 
rivijug  to  find  Jimmy  in  tears.  He  had  lost 
Dick's  photograph  —  or  Dick  had  forgotten 
to  give  it  back  at  the  hotel,  for  this  was  all 
he  had  in  his  pocket.  And  he  produced  a 
letter  —  the  missing  letter  of  Daddy,  which 
by  mistake  Falloner  had  handed  back  in- 
stead of  the  photograph.  Miss  Boutelle 
saw  the  superscription  and  Californian  post- 
mark with  a  vague  curiosity. 

"Did  you  look  inside,  dear?  Perhaps  it 
slipped  in." 

Jimmy  had  not.  Miss  Boutelle  did  — 
and  I  grieve  to  say,  ended  by  reading  the 
whole  letter. 

Bob  Falloner  had  finished  packing  his 
things  the  next  morning,  and  was  waiting 
for  Mr.  Ricketts  and  Jimmy.  But  when  a 
tap  came  at  the  door,  he  opened  it  to  find 
Miss  Boutelle  standing  there.  "I  have  sent 
Jimmy  into  the  bedroom,"  she  said  with  a 
faint  smile,  "to  look  for  the  photograph 
which  you  gave  him  in  mistake  for  this.  I 
think  for  the  present  he  prefers  his  brother's 
picture  to  this  letter,  which  I  have  not  ex- 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  37 

plained  to  him  or  any  one."  She  stopped, 
and  raising  her  eyes  to  his,  said  gently:  "J 
think  it  would  have  only  been  a  part  of  your 
goodness  to  have  trusted  me,  Mr.  Falloner." 

"Then  you  will  forgive  me?"  he  said 
eagerly. 

She  looked  at  him  frankly,  yet  with  a 
faint  trace  of  coquetry  that  the  angels  might 
have  pardoned.  "Do  you  want  me  to  say 
to  you  what  Mrs.  Ricketts  says  were  the 
last  words  of  poor  Cissy?" 

A  year  later,  when  the  darkness  and  rain 
were  creeping  up  Sawyer's  Ledge,  and 
Houston  and  Daddy  Folsom  were  sitting 
before  their  brushwood  fire  in  the  old 
Lasham  cabin,  the  latter  delivered  himself 
oracularly. 

"It's  a  mighty  queer  thing,  that  news 
about  Bob!  It's  not  that  he's  married, 
for  that  might  happen  to  any  one;  but  this 
yer  account  in  the  paper  of  his  wedding 
being  attended  by  his  '  little  brother. '  That 
gets  me!  To  think  all  the  while  he  was 
here  he  was  lettin'  on  to  us  that  he  hadn't 
kith  or  kin!  Well,  sir,  that  accounts  to 
me  for  one  thing,  —  the  sing'ler  way  he  tum- 
bled to  that  letter  of  poor  Dick  Lasham's 
little  brother  and  sent  him  that  draft! 


38  JIMMTS  BIG  BROTHER 

Don't  ye  see?  It  was  a  feller  feelin' ! 
Knew  how  it  was  himself !  I  reckon  ye 
all  thought  I  was  kinder  soft  reading  that 
letter  o'  Dick  Lasham's  little  brother  to 
him,  but  ye  see  what  it  did." 


THE  YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

I  DO  not  think  that  any  of  us  who  en- 
joyed the  acquaintance  of  the  Piper  girls  or 
the  hospitality  of  Judge  Piper,  their  father, 
ever  cared  for  the  youngest  sister.  Not  on 
account  of  her  extreme  youth,  for  the  eldest 
Miss  Piper  confessed  to  twenty-six  —  and 
the  youth  of  the  youngest  sister  was  estab- 
lished solely,  I  think,  by  one  big  braid 
down  her  back.  Neither  was  it  because 
she  was  the  plainest,  for  the  beauty  of  the 
Piper  girls  was  a  recognized  general  distinc- 
tion, and  the  youngest  Miss  Piper  was  not 
entirely  devoid  of  the  family  charms.  Nor 
was  it  from  any  lack  of  intelligence,  nor 
from  any  defective  social  quality;  for  her 
precocity  was  astounding,  and  her  good- 
humored  frankness  alarming.  Neither  do  I 
think  it  could  be  said  that  a  slight  deafness, 
which  might  impart  an  embarrassing  pub- 
licity to  any  statement  —  the  reverse  of  our 
general  feeling  —  that  might  be  confided  by 
any  one  to  her  private  ear,  was  a  sufficient 


40  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

reason;  for  it  was  pointed  out  that  she  al- 
ways understood  everything  that  Tom  Spar- 
rell  told  her  in  his  ordinary  tone  of  voice. 
Briefly,  it  was  very  possible  that  Delaware 
—  the  youngest  Miss  Piper  —  did  not  like  us. 

Yet  it  was  fondly  believed  by  us  that  the 
other  sisters  failed  to  show  that  indifference 
to  our  existence  shown  by  Miss  Delaware, 
although  the  heartburnings,  misunderstand- 
ings, jealousies,  hopes  and  fears,  and  finally 
the  chivalrous  resignation  with  which  we  at 
last  accepted  the  long  foregone  conclusion 
that  they  were  not  for  us,  and  far  beyond 
our  reach,  is  not  a  part  of  this  veracious 
chronicle.  Enough  that  none  of  the  flirta- 
tions of  her  elder  sisters  affected  or  were 
shared  by  the  youngest  Miss  Piper.  She 
moved  in  this  heart-breaking  atmosphere 
with  sublime  indifference,  treating  her  sis- 
ters' affairs  with  what  we  considered  rank 
simplicity  or  appalling  frankness.  Their 
few  admirers  who  were  weak  enough  to  at- 
tempt to  gain  her  mediation  or  confidence 
had  reason  to  regret  it. 

"It 's  no  kind  o'  use  givin'  me  goodies," 
she  said  to  a  helpless  suitor  of  Louisiana 
Piper's  who  had  offered  to  bring  her  some 
sweets,  "for  I  ain't  got  no  influence  with 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  41 

Lu,  and  if  I  don't  give  'em  up  to  her  when 
she  hears  of  it,  she  '11  nag  me  and  hate  you 
like  pizen.  Unless,"  she  added  thought- 
fully, "it  was  wintergreen  lozenges;  Lu 
can't  stand  them,  or  anybody  who  eats  them 
within  a  mile."  It  is  needless  to  add  that 
the  miserable  man,  thus  put  upon  his  gal- 
lantry, was  obliged  in  honor  to  provide  Del 
with  the  wintergreen  lozenges  that  kept  him 
in  disfavor  and  at  a  distance.  Unfortu- 
nately, too,  any  predilection  or  pity  for  any 
particular  suitor  of  her  sister's  was  attended 
by  even  more  disastrous  consequences.  It 
was  reported  that  while  acting  as  "goose- 
berry"—  a  role  usually  assigned  to  her  — 
between  Virginia  Piper  and  an  exception- 
ally timid  young  surveyor,  during  a  ramble 
she  conceived  a  rare  sentiment  of  humanity 
towards  the  unhappy  man.  After  once  or 
twice  lingering  behind  in  the  ostentatious 
picking  of  a  wayside  flower,  or  "running 
on  ahead "  to  look  at  a  mountain  view, 
without  any  apparent  effect  on  the  shy  and 
speechless  youth,  she  decoyed  him  aside 
while  her  elder  sister  rambled  indifferently 
and  somewhat  scornfully  on.  The  young- 
est Miss  Piper  leaped  upon  the  rail  of  a 
fence,  and  with  the  stalk  of  a  thimbleberry 


42  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

in  her  mouth  swung  her  small  feet  to  and 
fro  and  surveyed  him  dispassionately. 

"Ye  don't  seem  to  be  ketchin'  on?"  she 
said  tentatively. 

The  young  man  smiled  feebly  and  inter- 
rogatively. 

"Don't  seem  to  be  either  follering  suit 
nor  trumpin',"  continued  Del  bluntly. 

"  I  suppose  so  —  that  is,  I  fear  that  Miss 
Virginia  "  —  he  stammered. 

"  Speak  up !  I  'm  a  little  deaf.  Say  it 
again !  "  said  Del,  screwing  up  her  eyes  and 
eyebrows. 

The  young  man  was  obliged  to  admit  in 
stentorian  tones  that  his  progress  had  been 
scarcely  satisfactory. 

"You're  goin'  on  too  slow  —  that 'sit," 
said  Del  critically.  "Why,  when  Captain 
Savage  meandered  along  here  with  Jinny  " 
(Virginia)  "last  week,  afore  we  got  as  far 
as  this  he  'd  reeled  off  a  heap  of  Byron  and 
Jamieson "  (Tennyson),  "and  sich;  and 
only  yesterday  Jinny  and  Doctor  Beveridge 
was  blowin'  thistletops  to  know  which  was 
a  flirt  all  along  the  trail  past  the  cross- 
roads. Why,  ye  ain't  picked  ez  much  as 
a  single  berry  for  Jinny,  let  alone  Lad's 
Love  or  Johnny  Jumpups  and  Kissme's, 


TEE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  43 

and  ye  keep  talkin'  across  me,  you  two,  till 
I'm  tired.  Now  look  here,"  she  burst  out 
with  sudden  decision,  "Jinny 's  gone  on 
ahead  in  a  kind  o'  huff;  but  I  reckon  she  's 
done  that  afore  too,  and  you  '11  find  her, 
jest  as  Spinner  did,  on  the  rise  of  the  hill, 
sittin'  on  a  pine  stump  and  lookin'  like 
this."  (Here  the  youngest  Miss  Piper 
locked  her  fingers  over  her  left  knee,  and 
drew  it  slightly  up,  —  with  a  sublime  in- 
difference to  the  exposure  of  considerable 
small-ankled  red  stocking,  —  and  with  a 
far-off,  plaintive  stare,  achieved  a  colorable 
imitation  of  her  elder  sister's  probable  atti- 
tude.) "Then  you  jest  go  up  softly,  like 
as  you  was  a  bear,  and  clap  your  hands  on 
her  eyes,  and  say  in  a  disguised  voice  like 
this "  (here  Del  turned  on  a  high  falsetto 
beyond  any  masculine  compass),  "'  Who's 
who?  '  jest  like  in  forfeits." 

"But  she'll  be  sure  to  know  me,"  said 
the  surveyor  timidly. 

"She  won't,"  said  Del  in  scornful  skepti- 
cism. 

"I  hardly  think  "  —  stammered  the  young 
man,  with  an  awkward  smile,  "that  I  —  in 
fact  —  she  '11  discover  me  —  before  I  can 
get  beside  her." 


44  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

"Not  if  you  go  softly,  for  she  '11  be  sittin' 
back  to  the  road,  so  —  gazing  away,  so"  — 
the  youngest  Miss  Piper  again  stared  dream- 
ily in  the  distance,  "and  you  '11  creep  up 
just  behind,  like  this." 

"But  won't  she  be  angry?  I  haven't 
known  her  long  —  that  is  —  don't  you  see  ?  " 
He  stopped  embarrassedly. 

"Can't  hear  a  word  you  say,"  said  Del, 
shaking  her  head  decisively.  "You  've  got 
my  deaf  ear.  Speak  louder,  or  come 
closer." 

But  here  the  instruction  suddenly  ended, 
once  and  for  all  time!  For  whether  the 
young  man  was  seriously  anxious  to  perfect 
himself;  whether  he  was  truly  grateful  to 
the  young  girl  and  tried  to  show  it ;  whether 
he  was  emboldened  by  the  childish  appeal 
of  the  long  brown  distinguishing  braid 
down  her  back,  or  whether  he  suddenly 
found  something  peculiarly  provocative  in 
the  reddish  brown  eyes  between  their  thick- 
set hedge  of  lashes,  and  with  the  trim  figure 
and  piquant  pose,  and  was  seized  with  that 
hysteric  desperation  which  sometimes  at- 
tacks timidity  itself,  I  cannot  say !  Enough 
that  he  suddenly  put  his  arm  around  her 
waist  and  his  lips  to  her  soft  satin  cheek, 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  45 

peppered  and  salted  as  it  was  by  sun-freckles 
and  mountain  air,  and  received  a  sound  box 
on  the  ear  for  his  pains.  The  incident  was 
closed.  He  did  not  repeat  the  experiment 
on  either  sister.  The  disclosure  of  his  re- 
buff seemed,  however,  to  give  a  singular 
satisfaction  to  Ked  Gulch. 

While  it  may  be  gathered  from  this  that 
the  youngest  Miss  Piper  was  impervious  to 
general  masculine  advances,  it  was  not  until 
later  that  Red  Gulch  was  thrown  into  skep- 
tical astonishment  by  the  rumors  that  all 
this  time  she  really  had  a  lover !  Allusion 
has  been  made  to  the  charge  that  her  deaf- 
ness did  not  prevent  her  from  perfectly  un- 
derstanding the  ordinary  tone  of  voice  of  a 
certain  Mr.  Thomas  Sparrell. 

No  undue  significance  was  attached  to 
this  fact  through  the  very  insignificance  and 
"impossibility"  of  that  individual;  —  a 
lanky,  red-haired  youth,  incapacitated  for 
manual  labor  through  lameness,  —  a  clerk 
in  a  general  store  at  the  Cross  Roads !  He 
had  never  been  the  recipient  of  Judge 
Piper's  hospitality;  he  had  never  visited 
the  house  even  with  parcels;  apparently  his 
only  interviews  with  her  or  any  of  the  family 
had  been  over  the  counter.  To  do  him  jus- 


46  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

tice  he  certainly  had  never  seemed  to  seek 
any  nearer  acquaintance;  LJ  was  not  at  the 
church  door  when  her  sisters,  beautiful  in 
their  Sunday  gowns,  filed  into  the  aisle, 
with  little  Delaware  bringing  up  the  rear; 
he  was  not  at  the  Democratic  barbecue,  that 
we  attended  without  reference  to  our  per- 
sonal politics,  and  solely  for  the  sake  of 
Judge  Piper  and  the  girls;  nor  did  he  go 
to  the  Agricultural  Fair  Ball  —  open  to  all. 
His  abstention  we  believed  to  be  owing  to 
his  lameness;  to  a  wholesome  consciousness 
of  his  own  social  defects ;  or  an  inordinate 
passion  for  reading  cheap  scientific  text- 
books, which  did  not,  however,  add  fluency 
nor  conviction  to  his  speech.  Neither  had 
he  the  abstraction  of  a  student,  for  his  ac- 
counts were  kept  with  an  accuracy  which 
struck  us,  who  dealt  at  the  store,  as  ignobly 
practical,  and  even  malignant.  Possibly 
we  might  have  expressed  this  opinion  more 
strongly  but  for  a  certain  rude  vigor  of 
repartee  which  he  possessed,  and  a  sugges- 
tion that  he  might  have  a  temper  on  occa- 
sion. "Them  red-haired  chaps  is  like  to 
be  tetchy  and  to  kinder  see  blood  through 
their  eyelashes,"  had  been  suggested  by  an 
observing  customer. 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  47 

In  short,  little  as  we  knew  of  the  young- 
est Miss  Piper,  he  was  the  last  man  we 
should  have  suspected  her  to  select  as  an 
admirer.  What  we  did  know  of  their 
public  relations,  purely  commercial  ones, 
implied  the  reverse  of  any  cordial  under- 
standing. The  provisioning  of  the  Piper 
household  was  entrusted  to  Del,  with  other 
practical  odds  and  ends  of  housekeeping, 
not  ornamental,  and  the  following  is  said 
to  be  a  truthful  record  of  one  of  their  over- 
heard interviews  at  the  store :  — 

The  youngest  Miss  Piper,  entering,  dis- 
placing a  quantity  of  goods  in  the  centre  to 
make  a  sideways  seat  for  herself,  and  look- 
ing around  loftily  as  she  took  a  memoran- 
dum-book and  pencil  from  her  pocket. 

"Ahem!  If  I  ain't  taking  you  away 
from  your  studies,  Mr.  Sparrell,  maybe 
you  '11  be  good  enough  to  look  here  a  minit ; 
—  but"  (in  affected  politeness)  "if  I  'm  dis- 
turbing you  I  can  come  another  time." 

Sparrell,  placing  the  book  he  had  been 
reading  carefully  under  the  counter,  and 
advancing  to  Miss  Delaware  with  a  com- 
plete ignoring  of  her  irony :  "  What  can  we 
do  for  you  to-day,  Miss  Piper?  " 

Miss   Delaware,    with    great   suavity   of 


48  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

manner,  examining  her  memorandum-book : 
"I  suppose  it  wouldn't  be  shocking  your 
delicate  feelings  too  much  to  inform  you 
that  the  canned  lobster  and  oysters  you  sent 
us  yesterday  wasn't  fit  for  hogs?" 

Sparrell  (blandly):  "They  weren't  in- 
tended for  them,  Miss  Piper.  If  we  had 
known  you  were  having  company  over  from 
Red  Gulch  to  dinner,  we  might  have  pro- 
vided something  more  suitable  for  them. 
We  have  a  fair  quality  of  oil-cake  and  corn- 
cobs in  stock,  at  reduced  figures.  But  the 
canned  provisions  were  for  your  own  fam- 

fly." 

Miss  Delaware  (secretly  pleased  at  this 
sarcastic  allusion  to  her  sister's  friends, 
but  concealing  her  delight):  "I  admire  to 
hear  you  talk  that  way,  Mr.  Sparrell;  it's 
better  than  minstrels  or  a  circus.  I  sup- 
pose you  get  it  outer  that  book,"  indicat- 
ing the  concealed  volume.  "What  do  you 
call  it?  " 

Sparrell  (politely):  "The  First  Princi- 
ples of  Geology." 

Miss  Delaware,  leaning  sideways  and 
curling  her  little  fingers  around  her  pink 
ear:  "Did  you  say  the  first  principles  of 
4  geology  '  or  '  politeness  '  ?  You  know  I 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPES  49 

am  so  deaf;  but,  of  course,  it  couldn't  be 
that." 

Sparrell  (easily):  "Oh  no,  you  seem  to 
have  that  in  your  hand  "  —  pointing  to  Miss 
Delaware's  memorandum-book —  "you  were 
quoting  from  it  when  you  came  in." 

Miss  Delaware,  after  an  affected  silence 
of  deep  resignation :  "  Well !  it 's  too  bad 
folks  can't  just  spend  their  lives  listenin'  to 
such  elegant  talk ;  I  'd  admire  to  do  nothing 
else!  But  there  's  my  family  up  at  Cotton- 
wood  —  and  they  must  eat.  They  're  that 
low  that  they  expect  me  to  waste  my  time 
getting  food  for  'em  here,  instead  of  drink- 
ing in  the  First  Principles  of  the  Grocery." 

"Geology,"  suggested  Sparrell  blandly. 
"The  history  of  rock  formation." 

"Geology,"  accepted  Miss  Delaware 
apologetically ;  "the  history  of  rocks,  which 
is  so  necessary  for  knowing  just  how  much 
sand  you  can  put  in  the  sugar.  So  I  reckon 
I  '11  leave  my  list  here,  and  you  can  have 
the  things  toted  to  Cottonwood  when  you  've 
got  through  with  your  First  Principles." 

She  tore  out  a  list  of  her  commissions 
from  a  page  of  her  memorandum -book, 
leaped  lightly  from  the  counter,  threw  her 
brown  braid  from  her  left  shoulder  to  its 


50  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

proper  place  down  her  back,  shook  out  her 
skirts  deliberately,  and  saying,  "Thank  you 
for  a  most  improvin'  afternoon,  Mr.  Spar- 
rell,"  sailed  demurely  out  of  the  store. 

A  few  auditors  of  this  narrative  thought 
it  inconsistent  that  a  daughter  of  Judge 
Piper  and  a  sister  of  the  angelic  host  should 
put  up  with  a  mere  clerk's  familiarity,  but 
it  was  pointed  out  that  "she  gave  him  as 
good  as  he  sent,"  and  the  story  was  gen- 
erally credited.  But  certainly  no  one  ever 
dreamed  that  it  pointed  to  any  more  pre- 
cious confidences  between  them. 

I  think  the  secret  burst  upon  the  family, 
with  other  things,  at  the  big  picnic  at 
Keservoir  Canon.  This  festivity  had  been 
arranged  for  weeks  previously,  and  was  un- 
dertaken chiefly  by  the  "Red  Gulch  Con- 
tingent," as  we  were  called,  as  a  slight  re- 
turn to  the  Piper  family  for  their  frequent 
hospitality.  The  Piper  sisters  were  ex- 
pected to  bring  nothing  but  their  own  per- 
sonal graces  and  attend  to  the  ministration 
of  such  viands  and  delicacies  as  the  boys 
had  profusely  supplied. 

The  site  selected  was  Reservoir  Canon,  a 
beautiful,  triangular  valley  with  very  steep 
sides,  one  of  which  was  crowned  by  the 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  51 

immense  reservoir  of  the  Pioneer  Ditch 
Company.  The  sheer  flanks  of  the  canon 
descended  in  furrowed  lines  of  vines  and 
clinging  bushes,  like  folds  of  falling  skirts, 
until  they  broke  again  into  flounces  of 
spangled  shrubbery  over  a  broad  level  car- 
pet of  monkshood,  mariposas,  lupines,  pop- 
pies, and  daisies.  Tempered  and  secluded 
from  the  sun's  rays  by  its  lofty  shadows, 
the  delicious  obscurity  of  the  canon  was  in 
sharp  contrast  to  the  fiery  mountain  trail 
that  in  the  full  glare  of  the  noonday  sky 
made  its  tortuous  way  down  the  hillside, 
like  a  stream  of  lava,  to  plunge  suddenly  into 
the  valley  and  extinguish  itself  in  its  cool- 
ness as  in  a  lake.  The  heavy  odors  of  wild 
honeysuckle,  syringa,  and  ceanothus  that 
hung  over  it  were  lightened  and  freshened 
by  the  sharp  spicing  of  pine  and  bay.  The 
mountain  breeze  which  sometimes  shook  the 
serrated  tops  of  the  large  redwoods  above 
with  a  chill  from  the  remote  snow  peaks 
even  in  the  heart  of  summer,  never  reached 
the  little  valley. 

It  seemed  an  ideal  place  for  a  picnic. 
Everybody  was  therefore  astonished  to  hear 
that  an  objection  was  suddenly  raised  to 
this  perfect  site.  They  were  still  more  as- 


52  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

tonished  to  know  that  the  objector  was  the 
youngest  Miss  Piper !  Pressed  to  give  her 
reasons,  she  had  replied  that  the  locality 
was  dangerous;  that  the  reservoir  placed 
upon  the  mountain,  notoriously  old  and 
worn  out,  had  been  rendered  more  unsafe 
by  false  economy  in  unskillful  and  hasty 
repairs  to  satisfy  speculating  stockbrokers, 
and  that  it  had  lately  shown  signs  of  leak- 
age and  sapping  of  its  outer  walls ;  that,  in 
the  event  of  an  outbreak,  the  little  triangu- 
lar valley,  from  which  there  was  no  outlet, 
would  be  instantly  flooded.  Asked  still 
more  pressingly  to  give  her  authority  for 
these  details,  she  at  first  hesitated,  and  then 
gave  the  name  of  Tom  Sparrell. 

The  derision  with  which  this  statement 
was  received  by  us  all,  as  the  opinion  of 
a  sedentary  clerk,  was  quite  natural  and 
obvious,  but  not  the  anger  which  it  excited 
in  the  breast  of  Judge  Piper;  for  it  was 
not  generally  known  that  the  judge  was  the 
holder  of  a  considerable  number  of  shares 
in  the  Pioneer  Ditch  Company,  and  that 
large  dividends  had  been  lately  kept  up  by 
a  false  economy  of  expenditure,  to  expedite 
a  "sharp  deal"  in  the  stock,  by  which  the 
judge  and  others  could  sell  out  of  a  failing 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  53 

company.  Rather,  it  was  believed,  that 
the  judge's  anger  was  due  only  to  the  dis- 
covery of  Sparrell's  influence  over  his  daugh- 
ter and  his  interference  with  the  social  af- 
fairs of  Cottonwood.  It  was  said  that  there 
was  a  sharp  scene  between  the  youngest 
Miss  Piper  and  the  combined  forces  of  the 
judge  and  the  elder  sisters,  which  ended  in 
the  former's  resolute  refusal  to  attend  the 
picnic  at  all  if  that  site  was  selected. 

As  Delaware  was  known  to  be  fearless 
even  to  the  point  of  recklessness,  and  fond 
of  gayety,  her  refusal  only  intensified  the 
belief  that  she  was  merely  "stickin'  up  for 
Sparrell's  judgment "  without  any  reference 
to  her  own  personal  safety  or  that  of  her 
sisters.  The  warning  was  laughed  away; 
the  opinion  of  Sparrell  treated  with  ridicule 
as  the  dyspeptic  and  envious  expression  of 
an  impractical  man.  It  was  pointed  out  that 
the  reservoir  had  lasted  a  long  time  even  in 
its  alleged  ruinous  state;  that  only  a  mira- 
cle of  coincidence  could  make  it  break  down 
that  particular  afternoon  of  the  picnic ;  that 
even  if  it  did  happen,  there  was  no  direct 
proof  that  it  would  seriously  flood  the  val- 
ley, or  at  best  add  more  than  a  spice  of  ex- 
citement to  the  affair.  The  "Red  Gulch 


54  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

Contingent,"  who  would  be  there,  was  quite 
as  capable  of  taking  care  of  the  ladies,  in 
case  of  any  accident,  as  any  lame  crank  who 
wouldn't,  but  could  only  croak  a  warning 
to  them  from  a  distance.  A  few  even  wished 
something  might  happen  that  they  might 
have  an  opportunity  of  showing  their  supe- 
rior devotion ;  indeed,  the  prospect  of  carry- 
ing the  half -submerged  sisters,  in  a  condi- 
tion of  helpless  loveliness,  in  their  arms  to 
a  place  of  safety  was  a  fascinating  possibil- 
ity. The  warning  was  conspicuously  inef- 
fective; everybody  looked  eagerly  forward 
to  the  day  and  the  unchanged  locality;  to 
the  greatest  hopefulness  and  anticipation 
was  added  the  stirring  of  defiance,  and 
when  at  last  the  appointed  hour  had  arrived, 
the  picnic  party  passed  down  the  twisting 
mountain  trail  through  the  heat  and  glare 
in  a  fever  of  enthusiasm. 

It  was  a  pretty  sight  to  view  this  spar- 
kling procession  —  the  girls  cool  and  radiant 
in  their  white,  blue,  and  yellow  muslins 
and  flying  ribbons,  the  "Contingent"  in  its 
cleanest  ducks,  and  blue  and  red  flannel 
shirts,  the  judge  white-waistcoated  and  pan- 
ama-hatted,  with  a  new  dignity  borrowed 
from  the  previous  circumstances,  and  three 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  55 

or  four  impressive  Chinamen  bringing  up 
the  rear  with  hampers  —  as  it  at  last  de- 
bouched into  Reservoir  Canon. 

Here  they  dispersed  themselves  over  the 
limited  area,  scarcely  half  an  acre,  with  the 
freedom  of  escaped  school  children.  They 
were  secure  in  their  woodland  privacy. 
They  were  overlooked  by  no  high  road  and 
its  passing  teams;  they  were  safe  from  acci- 
dental intrusion  from  the  settlement;  in- 
deed they  went  so  far  as  to  effect  the  exclu- 
siveness  of  "clique."  At  first  they  amused 
themselves  by  casting  humorously  defiant 
eyes  at  the  long  low  Ditch  Reservoir,  which 
peeped  over  the  green  wall  of  the  ridge,  six 
hundred  feet  above  them;  at  times  they 
even  simulated  an  exaggerated  terror  of  it, 
and  one  recognized  humorist  declaimed  a 
grotesque  appeal  to  its  forbearance,  with 
delightful  local  allusions.  Others  pre- 
tended to  discover  near  a  woodman's  hut, 
among  the  belt  of  pines  at  the  top  of  the 
descending  trail,  the  peeping  figure  of  the 
ridiculous  and  envious  Sparrell.  But  all 
this  was  presently  forgotten  in  the  actual 
festivity.  Small  as  was  the  range  of  the 
valley,  it  still  allowed  retreats  during  the 
dances  for  waiting  couples  among  the  con- 


56  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

venient  laurel  and  manzanita  bushes  which 
flounced  the  mountain  side.  After  the 
dancing,  old-fashioned  children's  games 
were  revived  with  great  laughter  and  half- 
hearted and  coy  protests  from  the  ladies; 
notably  one  pastime  known  as  "I  'm  a-pin- 
in',"  in  which  ingenious  performance  the 
victim  was  obliged  to  stand  in  the  centre  of 
a  circle  and  publicly  "pine"  for  a  member 
of  the  opposite  sex.  Some  hilarity  was  oc- 
casioned by  the  mischievous  Miss  "Georgy  " 
Piper  declaring,  when  it  came  to  her  turn, 
that  she  was  "pinin'  "  for  a  look  at  the  face 
of  Tom  Sparrell  just  now ! 

In  this  local  trifling  two  hours  passed, 
until  the  party  sat  down  to  the  long-looked- 
for  repast.  It  was  here  that  the  health  of 
Judge  Piper  was  neatly  proposed  by  the  edi- 
tor of  the  "Argus."  The  judge  responded 
with  great  dignity  and  some  emotion.  He 
reminded  them  that  it  had  been  his  humble 
endeavor  to  promote  harmony  —  that  har- 
mony so  characteristic  of  American  princi- 
ples—  in  social  as  he  had  in  political  cir- 
cles, and  particularly  among  the  strangely 
constituted  yet  purely  American  elements 
of  frontier  life.  He  accepted  the  present 
festivity  with  its  overflowing  hospitalities, 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  57 

not  in  recognition  of  himself  —  ("yes! 
yes!")  —  nor  of  his  family  —  (enthusiastic 
protests)  —  but  of  that  American  principle ! 
If  at  one  time  it  seemed  probable  that  these 
festivities  might  be  marred  by  the  machina- 
tions of  envy  —  (groans)  —  or  that  harmony 
interrupted  by  the  importation  of  low-toned 
material  interests  —  (groans)  —  he  could  say 
that,  looking  around  him,  he  had  never  be- 
fore felt  —  er  —  that  —  Here  the  judge 
stopped  short,  reeled  slightly  forward, 
caught  at  a  camp-stool,  recovered  himself 
with  an  apologetic  smile,  and  turned  inquir- 
ingly to  his  neighbor. 

A  light  laugh  —  instantly  suppressed  — 
at  what  was  at  first  supposed  to  be  the  ef- 
fect of  the  "overflowing  hospitality"  upon 
the  speaker  himself,  went  around  the  male 
circle  until  it  suddenly  appeared  that  half 
a  dozen  others  had  started  to  their  feet  at 
the  same  time,  with  white  faces,  and  that 
one  of  the  ladies  had  screamed. 

"What  is  it?"  everybody  was  asking 
with  interrogatory  smiles. 

It  was  Judge  Piper  who  replied :  — 

"A  little  shock  of  earthquake,"  he  said 
blandly;  "a  mere  thrill!  I  think,"  he  added 
with  a  faint  smile,  "we  may  say  that  Nature 


58  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

herself  has  applauded  our  efforts  in  good 
old  Calif ornian  fashion,  and  signified  her 
assent.  What  are  you  saying,  Fludder?  " 

"I  was  thinking,  sir,"  said  Fludder  de- 
ferentially, in  a  lower  voice,  "that  if  any- 
thing was  wrong  in  the  reservoir,  this  shock, 
you  know,  might  "  — 

He  was  interrupted  by  a  faint  crashing 
and  crackling  sound,  and  looking  up,  be- 
held a  good-sized  boulder,  evidently  de- 
tached from  some  greater  height,  strike  the 
upland  plateau  at  the  left  of  the  trail  and 
bound  into  the  fringe  of  forest  beside  it. 
A  slight  cloud  of  dust  marked  its  course, 
and  then  lazily  floated  away  in  mid  air. 
But  it  had  been  watched  agitatedly,  and  it 
was  evident  that  that  singular  loss  of  ner- 
vous balance  which  is  apt  to  affect  all  those 
who  go  through  the  slightest  earthquake 
experience  was  felt  by  all.  But  some  sense 
of  humor,  however,  remained. 

"Looks  as  if  the  water  risks  we  took 
ain't  goin'  to  cover  earthquakes,"  drawled 
Dick  Frisney;  "still  that  wasn't  a  bad 
shot,  if  we  only  knew  what  they  were  aim- 
ing at." 

"Do  be  quiet,"  said  Virginia  Piper,  her 
cheeks  pink  with  excitement.  "Listen, 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  59 

can't  you?  What 's  that  funny  murmuring 
you  hear  now  and  then  up  there?" 

"It's  only  the  snow-wind  playin'  with 
the  pines  on  the  summit.  You  girls  won't 
allow  anybody  any  fun  but  yourselves." 

But  here  a  scream  from  "Georgy,"  who, 
assisted  by  Captain  Fairfax,  had  mounted 
a  camp-stool  at  the  mouth  of  the  valley, 
attracted  everybody's  attention.  She  was 
standing  upright,  with  dilated  eyes,  staring 
at  the  top  of  the  trail.  "Look!  "  she  said 
excitedly,  "if  the  trail  isn't  moving!  " 

Everybody  faced  in  that  direction.  At 
the  first  glance  it  seemed  indeed  as  if  the 
trail  was  actually  moving;  wriggling  and 
undulating  its  tortuous  way  down  the  moun- 
tain like  a  huge  snake,  only  swollen  to  twice 
its  usual  size.  But  the  second  glance  showed 
it  to  be  no  longer  a  trail  but  a  channel  of 
water,  whose  stream,  lifted  in  a  bore-like 
wall  four  or  five  feet  high,  was  plunging 
down  into  the  devoted  valley. 

For  an  instant  they  were  unable  to  com- 
prehend even  the  nature  of  the  catastrophe. 
The  reservoir  was  directly  over  their  heads ; 
the  bursting  of  its  wall  they  had  imagined 
would  naturally  bring  down  the  water  in 
a  dozen  trickling  streams  or  falls  over  the 


60  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

cliff  above  them  and  along  the  flanks  of 
the  mountain.  But  that  its  suddenly  liber- 
ated volume  should  overflow  the  upland  be- 
yond and  then  descend  in  a  pent-up  flood 
by  their  own  trail  and  their  only  avenue 
of  escape,  had  been  beyond  their  wildest 
fancy. 

They  met  this  smiting  truth  with  that 
characteristic  short  laugh  with  which  the 
American  usually  receives  the  blow  of  Fate 
or  the  unexpected  —  as  if  he  recognized 
only  the  absurdity  of  the  situation.  Then 
they  ran  to  the  women,  collected  them  to- 
gether, and  dragged  them  to  vantages  of 
fancied  security  among  the  bushes  which 
flounced  the  long  skirts  of  the  mountain 
walls.  But  I  leave  this  part  of  the  descrip- 
tion to  the  characteristic  language  of  one 
of  the  party :  — 

"When  the  flood  struck  us,  it  did  not 
seem  to  take  any  stock  of  us  in  particular, 
but  laid  itself  out  to  '  go  for  '  that  picnic 
for  all  it  was  worth!  It  wiped  it  off  the 
face  of  the  earth  in  about  twenty-five  sec- 
onds! It  first  made  a  clean  break  from 
stem  to  stern,  carrying  everything  along 
with  it.  The  first  thing  I  saw  was  old 
Judge  Piper,  puttin'  on  his  best  licks  to 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  61 

get  away  from  a  big  can  of  strawberry  ice 
cream  that  was  trundling  after  him  and  try- 
ing to  empty  itself  on  his  collar,  whenever 
a  bigger  wave  lifted  it.  He  was  followed 
by  what  was  left  of  the  brass  band ;  the  big 
drum  just  humpin'  itself  to  keep  abreast  o' 
the  ice  cream,  mixed  up  with  camp-stools, 
music-stands,  a  few  Chinamen,  and  then 
what  they  call  in  them  big  San  Francisco 
processions  '  citizens  generally.'  The  hull 
thing  swept  up  the  canon  inside  o'  thirty 
seconds.  Then,  what  Captain  Fairfax 
called  '  the  reflex  action  in  the  laws  o'  mo- 
tion' happened,  and  darned  if  the  hull 
blamed  procession  didn't  sweep  back  again 
—  this  time  all  the  heavy  artillery,  such 
as  camp-kettles,  lager  beer  kegs,  bottles, 
glasses,  and  crockery  that  was  left  behind 
takin'  the  lead  now,  and  Judge  Piper  and 
that  ice  cream  can  bringin'  up  the  rear. 
As  the  jedge  passed  us  the  second  time,  we 
noticed  that  that  ice  cream  can  —  hevin' 
swallowed  water  —  was  kinder  losing  its 
wind,  and  we  encouraged  the  old  man  by 
shoutin'  out,  '  Five  to  one  on  him! '  And 
then,  you  wouldn't  believe  what  followed. 
Why,  darn  my  skin,  when  that  '  reflex  '  met 
the  current  at  the  other  end,  it  just  swirled 


62  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

around  again  in  what  Captain  Fairfax 
called  the  'centrifugal  curve,'  and  just 
went  round  and  round  the  canon  like  ez 
when  yer  washin'  the  dirt  out  o'  a  prospect- 
in'  pan  —  every  now  and  then  washin'  some 
one  of  the  boys  that  was  in  it,  like  scum, 
up  ag'in  the  banks. 

"We  managed  in  this  way  to  snake  out 
the  judge,  jest  ez  he  was  sailin'  round  on 
the  home  stretch,  passin'  the  quarter  post 
two  lengths  ahead  o'  the  can.  A  good  deal 
o'  the  ice  cream  had  washed  away,  but  it 
took  us  ten  minutes  to  shake  the  cracked 
ice  and  powdered  salt  out  o'  the  old  man's 
clothes,  and  warm  him  up  again  in  the 
laurel  bush  where  he  was  clinging.  This 
sort  o'  '  Here  we  go  round  the  mulberry 
bush '  kep'  on  until  most  o'  the  humans 
was  got  out,  and  only  the  furniture  o'  the 
picnic  was  left  in  the  race.  Then  it  got 
kinder  mixed  up,  and  went  sloshin'  round 
here  and  there,  ez  the  water  kep'  comin' 
down  by  the  trail.  Then  Lulu  Piper,  what 
I  was  holdin'  up  all  the  time  in  a  laurel 
bush,  gets  an  idea,  for  all  she  was  wet  and 
draggled;  and  ez  the  things  went  bobbin' 
round,  she  calls  out  the  figures  o'  a  cotillon 
to  'em.  '  Two  camp-stools  forward.'  '  Sa- 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  63 

shay  and  back  to  your  places.'  'Change 
partners.'  '  Hands  all  round.' 

"She  was  clear  grit,  you  bet!  And  the 
joke  caught  on  and  the  other  girls  jined 
in,  and  it  kinder  cheered  'em,  for  they  was 
wan  tin'  it.  Then  Fludder  allowed  to  pa- 
cify 'em  by  sayin'  he  just  figured  up  the 
size  o'  the  reservoir  and  the  size  o'  the 
canon,  and  he  kalkilated  that  the  cube  was 
about  ekal,  and  the  canon  couldn't  flood 
any  more.  And  then  Lulu  —  who  was  peart 
as  a  jay  and  could  n't  be  fooled  —  speaks 
up  and  says,  '  What 's  the  matter  with  the 
ditch,  Dick?' 

"  Lord !  then  we  knew  that  she  knew  the 
worst;  for  of  course  all  the  water  in  the 
ditch  itself  —  fifty  miles  of  it !  —  was  drain- 
in'  now  into  that  reservoir  and  was  bound 
to  come  down  to  the  canon." 

It  was  at  this  point  that  the  situation 
became  really  desperate,  for  they  had  now 
crawled  up  the  steep  sides  as  far  as  the 
bushes  afforded  foothold,  and  the  water  was 
still  rising.  The  chatter  of  the  girls  ceased, 
there  were  long  silences,  in  which  the  men 
discussed  the  wildest  plans,  and  proposed  to 
tear  their  shirts  into  strips  to  make  ropes  to 
support  the  girls  by  sticks  driven  into  the 


64  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

mountain  side.  It  was  in  one  of  those  in- 
tervals that  the  distinct  strokes  of  a  wood- 
man's axe  were  heard  high  on  the  upland 
at  the  point  where  the  trail  descended  to 
the  canon.  Every  ear  was  alert,  but  only 
those  on  one  side  of  the  canon  could  get  a 
fair  view  of  the  spot.  This  was  the  good 
fortune  of  Captain  Fairfax  and  Georgy 
Piper,  who  had  climbed  to  the  highest  bush 
on  that  side,  and  were  now  standing  up, 
gazing  excitedly  in  that  direction. 

"Some  one  is  cutting  down  a  tree  at  the 
head  of  the  trail,"  shouted  Fairfax.  The 
response  and  joyful  explanation,  "for  a  dam 
across  the  trail,"  was  on  everybody's  lips 
at  the  same  time. 

But  the  strokes  of  the  axe  were  slow  and 
painfully  intermittent.  Impatience  burst 
out. 

"Yell  to  him  to  hurry  up!  Why  have 
n't  they  brought  two  men?  " 

"It's  only  one  man,"  shouted  the  cap- 
tain, "and  he  seems  to  be  a  cripple.  By 
Jiminy !  —  it  is  —  yes !  —  it 's  Tom  Spar- 
rell!" 

There  was  a  dead  silence.  Then,  I  grieve 
to  say,  shame  and  its  twin  brother  rage  took 
possession  of  their  weak  humanity.  Oh, 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  65 

yes!  It  was  all  of  a  piece!  Why  in  the 
name  of  Folly  hadn't  he  sent  for  an  able- 
bodied  man.  Were  they  to  be  drowned 
through  his  cranky  obstinacy? 

The  blows  still  went  on  slowly.  Pre- 
sently, however,  they  seemed  to  alternate 
with  other  blows  - —  but  alas !  they  were 
slower,  and  if  possible  feebler ! 

"Have  they  got  another  cripple  to  work?  " 
roared  the  Contingent  in  one  furious  voice. 

"No  —  it's  a  woman  —  a  little  one  — 
yes!  a  girl.  Hello!  Why,  sure  as  you 
live,  it 's  Delaware !  " 

A  spontaneous  cheer  burst  from  the  Con- 
tingent, partly  as  a  rebuke  to  Sparrell,  I 
think,  partly  from  some  shame  over  their 
previous  rage.  He  could  take  it  as  he 
liked. 

Still  the  blows  went  on  distressingly  slow. 
The  girls  were  hoisted  on  the  men's  shoul- 
ders ;  the  men  were  half  submerged.  Then 
there  was  a  painful  pause;  then  a  crum- 
bling crash.  Another  cheer  went  up  from 
the  canon. 

"It's  down!  straight  across  the  trail," 
shouted  Fairfax,  "and  a  part  of  the  bank 
on  the  top  of  it." 

There  was  another  moment  of  suspense. 


66  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

Would  it  hold  or  be  carried  away  by  the 
momentum  of  the  flood?  It  held!  In  a 
few  moments  Fairfax  again  gave  voice  to 
the  cheering  news  that  the  flow  had  stopped 
and  the  submerged  trail  was  reappearing. 
In  twenty  minutes  it  was  clear  —  a  muddy 
river  bed,  but  possible  of  ascent !  Of  course 
there  was  no  diminution  of  the  water  in  the 
canon,  which  had  no  outlet,  yet  it  now  was 
possible  for  the  party  to  swing  from  bush 
to  bush  along  the  mountain  side  until  the 
foot  of  the  trail  —  no  longer  an  opposing 
one  —  was  reached.  There  were  some  mis- 
steps and  mishaps,  —  flounderings  in  the 
water,  and  some  dangerous  rescues,  —  but 
in  half  an  hour  the  whole  concourse  stood 
upon  the  trail  and  commenced  the  ascent. 
It  was  a  slow,  difficult,  and  lugubrious  pro- 
cession —  I  fear  not  the  best-tempered  one, 
now  that  the  stimulus  of  danger  and  chiv- 
alry was  past.  When  they  reached  the 
dam  made  by  the  fallen  tree,  although  they 
were  obliged  to  make  a  long  detour  to  avoid 
its  steep  sides,  they  could  see  how  success- 
fully it  had  diverted  the  current  to  a  decliv- 
ity on  the  other  side. 

But  strangely  enough  they  were  greeted 
by  nothing  else !    Sparrell  and  the  youngest 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  67 

Miss  Piper  were  gone;  and  when  they  at 
last  reached  the  highroad,  they  were  as- 
tounded to  hear  from  a  passing  teamster 
that  no  one  in  the  settlement  knew  any- 
thing of  the  disaster! 

This  was  the  last  drop  in  their  cup  of 
bitterness!  They  who  had  expected  that 
the  settlement  was  waiting  breathlessly  for 
their  rescue,  who  anticipated  that  they 
would  be  welcomed  as  heroes,  were  obliged 
to  meet  the  ill-concealed  amusement  of  pas- 
sengers and  friends  at  their  dishevelled  and 
bedraggled  appearance,  which  suggested 
only  the  blundering  mishaps  of  an  ordinary 
summer  outing!  "Boatin'  in  the  reservoir, 
and  fell  in?"  "Playing  at  canal-boat  in 
the  Ditch?"  were  some  of  the  cheerful  hy- 
potheses. The  fleeting  sense  of  gratitude 
they  had  felt  for  their  deliverers  was  dissi- 
pated by  the  time  they  had  reached  their 
homes,  and  their  rancor  increased  by  the 
information  that  when  the  earthquake  oc- 
curred Mr.  Tom  Sparrell  and  Miss  Dela- 
ware were  enjoying  a  "pasear"  in  the  for- 
est —  he  having  a  half-holiday  by  virtue  of 
the  festival  —  and  that  the  earthquake  had 
revived  his  fears  of  a  catastrophe.  The 
two  had  procured  axes  in  the  woodman's 


68  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

hut  and  did  what  they  thought  was  neces- 
sary to  relieve  the  situation  of  the  picnick- 
ers. But  the  very  modesty  of  this  account 
of  their  own  performance  had  the  effect  of 
belittling  the  catastrophe  itself,  and  the 
picnickers'  report  of  their  exceeding  peril 
was  received  with  incredulous  laughter. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Red 
Gulch  there  was  a  serious  division  between 
the  Piper  family,  supported  by  the  Contin- 
gent, and  the  rest  of  the  settlement.  Tom 
Sparrell's  warning  was  remembered  by  the 
latter,  and  the  ingratitude  of  the  picnickers 
to  their  rescuers  commented  upon;  the  ac- 
tual calamity  to  the  reservoir  was  more  or 
less  attributed  to  the  imprudent  and  reck- 
less contiguity  of  the  revelers  on  that  day, 
and  there  were  not  wanting  those  who  re- 
ferred the  accident  itself  to  the  machina- 
tions of  the  scheming  Ditch  Director  Piper ! 

It  was  said  that  there  was  a  stormy  scene 
in  the  Piper  household  that  evening.  The 
judge  had  demanded  that  Delaware  should 
break  off  her  acquaintance  with  Sparrell, 
and  she  had  refused;  the  judge  had  de- 
manded of  Sparrell's  employer  that  he 
should  discharge  him,  and  had  been  met 
with  the  astounding  information  that  Spar- 


THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER  69 

rell  was  already  a  silent  partner  in  the  con- 
cern. At  this  revelation  Judge  Piper  was 
alarmed;  while  he  might  object  to  a  clerk 
who  could  not  support  a  wife,  as  a  consist- 
ent democrat  he  could  not  oppose  a  fairly 
prosperous  tradesman.  A  final  appeal  was 
made  to  Delaware;  she  was  implored  to 
consider  the  situation  of  her  sisters,  who 
had  all  made  more  ambitious  marriages  or 
were  about  to  make  them.  Why  should 
she  now  degrade  the  family  by  marrying 
a  country  storekeeper? 

It  is  said  that  here  the  youngest  Miss 
Piper  made  a  memorable  reply,  and  a  reve- 
lation the  truth  of  which  was  never  gain- 
said :  — 

"  You  all  wanter  know  why  I  'm  going  to 
marry  Tom  Sparrell?  "  she  queried,  stand- 
ing up  and  facing  the  whole  family  circle. 

"Yes." 

"Why  I  prefer  him  to  the  hull  caboodle 
that  you  girls  have  married  or  are  going  to 
marry?"  she  continued,  meditatively  biting 
the  end  of  her  braid. 

"Yes." 

"Well,  he's  the  only  man  of  the  whole 
lot  that  hasn't  proposed  to  me  first." 

It  is  presumed  that  Sparrell  made  good 


70  THE    YOUNGEST  MISS  PIPER 

the  omission,  or  that  the  family  were  glad 
to  get  rid  of  her,  for  they  were  married  that 
autumn.  And  really  a  later  comparison  of 
the  family  records  shows  that  while  Captain 
Fairfax  remained  "Captain  Fairfax,"  and 
the  other  sons-in-law  did  not  advance  pro- 
portionately in  standing  or  riches,  the  lame 
storekeeper  of  Red  Gulch  became  the  Hon. 
Senator  Tom  Sparrell. 


A  WIDOW   OF    THE    SANTA   ANA 
VALLEY 

THE  Widow  Wade  was  standing  at  her 
bedroom  window  staring  out,  in  that  vague 
instinct  which  compels  humanity  in  mo- 
ments of  doubt  and  perplexity  to  seek  this 
change  of  observation  or  superior  illumina- 
tion. Not  that  Mrs.  Wade's  disturbance 
was  of  a  serious  character.  She  had  passed 
the  acute  stage  of  widowhood  by  at  least 
two  years,  and  the  slight  redness  of  her  soft 
eyelids  as  well  as  the  droop  of  her  pretty 
mouth  were  merely  the  recognized  outward 
and  visible  signs  of  the  grievously  minded 
religious  community  in  which  she  lived. 
The  mourning  she  still  wore  was  also  partly 
in  conformity  with  the  sad -colored  garments 
of  her  neighbors,  and  the  necessities  of  the 
rainy  season.  She  was  in  comfortable  cir- 
cumstances, the  mistress  of  a  large  ranch 
in  the  valley,  which  had  lately  become  more 
valuable  by  the  extension  of  a  wagon  road 
through  its  centre.  She  was  simply  worry- 
ing whether  she  should  go  to  a  "  sociable " 


72      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY 

ending  with  "a  dance"  —  a  daring  innova- 
tion of  some  strangers  —  at  the  new  hotel, 
or  continue  to  eschew  such  follies,  that 
were,  according  to  local  belief,  unsuited  to 
"a  vale  of  tears." 

Indeed  at  this  moment  the  prospect  she 
gazed  abstractedly  upon  seemed  to  justify 
that  lugubrious  description.  The  Santa 
Ana  Valley  —  a  long  monotonous  level  — 
was  dimly  visible  through  moving  curtains 
of  rain  or  veils  of  mist,  to  the  black  mourn- 
ing edge  of  the  horizon,  and  had  looked 
like  that  for  months.  The  valley  —  in  some 
remote  epoch  an  arm  of  the  San  Francisco 
Bay  —  every  rainy  season  seemed  to  be  try- 
ing to  revert  to  its  original  condition,  and, 
long  after  the  early  spring  had  laid  on  its 
liberal  color  in  strips,  bands,  and  patches 
of  blue  and  yellow,  the  blossoms  of  mustard 
and  lupine  glistened  like  wet  paint.  Never- 
theless on  that  rich  alluvial  soil  Nature's 
tears  seemed  only  to  fatten  the  widow's 
acres  and  increase  her  crops.  Her  neigh- 
bors, too,  were  equally  prosperous.  Yet 
for  six  months  of  the  year  the  recognized 
expression  of  Santa  Ana  was  one  of  sadness, 
and  for  the  other  six  months  —  of  resigna- 
tion. Mrs.  Wade  had  yielded  early  to  this 


A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY     73 

influence,  as  she  had  to  others,  in  the  weak- 
ness of  her  gentle  nature,  and  partly  as  it 
was  more  becoming  the  singular  tragedy  that 
had  made  her  a  widow. 

The  late  Mr.  Wade  had  been  found  dead 
with  a  bullet  through  his  head  in  a  secluded 
part  of  the  road  over  Heavy  Tree  Hill  in 
Sonora  County.  Near  him  lay  two  other 
bodies,  one  afterwards  identified  as  John 
Stubbs,  a  resident  of  the  Hill,  and  probably 
a  traveling  companion  of  Wade's,  and  the 
other  a  noted  desperado  and  highwayman, 
still  masked,  as  at  the  moment  of  the  at- 
tack. Wade  and  his  companion  had  prob- 
ably sold  their  lives  dearly,  and  against 
odds,  for  another  mask  was  found  on  the 
ground,  indicating  that  the  attack  was  not 
single-handed,  and  as  Wade's  body  had  not 
yet  been  rifled,  it  was  evident  that  the  re- 
maining highwayman  had  fled  in  haste. 
The  hue  and  cry  had  been  given  by  appar- 
ently the  only  one  of  the  travelers  who  es- 
caped, but  as  he  was  hastening  to  take  the 
overland  coach  to  the  East  at  the  time,  his 
testimony  could  not  be  submitted  to  the 
coroner's  deliberation.  The  facts,  however, 
were  sufficiently  plain  for  a  verdict  of  will- 
ful murder  against  the  highwayman,  al- 


74      A    WIDOW  OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY 

though  it  was  believed  that  the  absent  wit- 
ness had  basely  deserted  his  companion  and 
left  him  to  his  fate,  or,  as  was  suggested  by 
others,  that  he  might  even  have  been  an 
accomplice.  It  was  this  circumstance  which 
protracted  comment  on  the  incident,  and 
the  sufferings  of  the  widow,  far  beyond  that 
rapid  obliteration  which  usually  overtook 
such  affairs  in  the  feverish  haste  of  the 
early  days.  It  caused  her  to  remove  to 
Santa  Ana,  where  her  old  father  had  feebly 
ranched  a  "quarter  section"  in  the  valley. 
He  survived  her  husband  only  a  few  months, 
leaving  her  the  property,  and  once  more 
in  mourning.  Perhaps  this  continuity  of 
woe  endeared  her  to  a  neighborhood  where 
distinctive  ravages  of  diphtheria  or  scarlet 
fever  gave  a  kind  of  social  preeminence  to 
any  household,  and  she  was  so  sympatheti- 
cally assisted  by  her  neighbors  in  the  man- 
agement of  the  ranch  that,  from  an  un- 
kempt and  wasteful  wilderness,  it  became 
paying  property.  The  slim,  willowy  figure, 
soft  red-lidded  eyes,  and  deep  crape  of 
"Sister  Wade"  at  church  or  prayer-meet- 
ing was  grateful  to  the  soul  of  these  gloomy 
worshipers,  and  in  time  she  herself  found 
that  the  arm  of  these  dyspeptics  of  mind 


A    WIDOW  OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY     75 

and  body  was  nevertheless  strong  and  sus- 
taining. Small  wonder  that  she  should  hes- 
itate to-night  about  plunging  into  inconsist- 
ent, even  though  trifling,  frivolities. 

But  apart  from  this  superficial  reason, 
there  was  another  instinctive  one  deep  down 
in  the  recesses  of  Mrs.  Wade's  timid  heart 
which  she  had  kept  to  herself,  and  indeed 
would  have  tearfully  resented  had  it  been 
offered  by  another.  The  late  Mr.  Wade 
had  been,  in  fact,  a  singular  example  of 
this  kind  of  frivolous  existence  carried  to  a 
man-like  excess.  Besides  being  a  patron 
of  amusements,  Mr.  Wade  gambled,  raced, 
and  drank.  He  was  often  home  late,  and 
sometimes  not  at  all.  Not  that  this  conduct 
was  exceptional  in  the  "roaring  days"  of 
Heavy  Tree  Hill,  but  it  had  given  Mrs. 
Wade  perhaps  an  undue  preference  for  a 
less  certain,  even  if  a  more  serious  life. 
His  tragic  death  was,  of  course,  a  kind  of 
martyrdom,  which  exalted  him  in  the  femi- 
nine mind  to  a  saintly  memory;  yet  Mrs. 
Wade  was  not  without  a  certain  relief  in 
that.  It  was  voiced,  perhaps  crudely,  by 
the  widow  of  Abuer  Drake  in  a  visit  of 
condolence  to  the  tearful  Mrs.  Wade  a  few 
days  after  Wade's  death.  "It's  a  vale  o' 


76      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY 

sorrow,  Mrs.  Wade,"  said  the  sympathizer, 
"but  it  has  its  ups  and  downs,  and  I  recken 
ye  '11  be  feelin'  soon  pretty  much  as  I  did 
about  Abner  when  he  was  took.  It  was 
mighty  soothin'  and  comfortin'  to  feel  that 
whatever  might  happen  now,  I  always  knew 
just  whar  Abner  was  passin'  his  nights." 
Poor  slim  Mrs.  Wade  had  no  disquieting 
sense  of  humor  to  interfere  with  her  recep- 
tion of  this  large  truth,  and  she  accepted  it 
with  a  burst  of  reminiscent  tears. 

A  long  volleying  shower  had  just  passed 
down  the  level  landscape,  and  was  followed 
by  a  rolling  mist  from  the  warm  saturated 
soil  like  the  smoke  of  the  discharge. 
Through  it  she  could  see  a  faint  lightening 
of  the  hidden  sun,  again  darkening  through 
a  sudden  onset  of  rain,  and  changing  as 
with  her  conflicting  doubts  and  resolutions. 
Thus  gazing,  she  was  vaguely  conscious  of 
an  addition  to  the  landscape  in  the  shape 
of  a  man  who  was  passing  down  the  road 
with  a  pack  on  his  back  like  the  tramping 
"prospectors"  she  had  often  seen  at  Heavy 
Tree  Hill.  That  memory  apparently  settled 
her  vacillating  mind;  she  determined  she 
would  not  go  to  the  dance.  But  as  she  was 
turning  away  from  the  window  a  second 


A    WIDOW  OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY     77 

figure,  a  horseman,  appeared  in  another 
direction  by  a  cross-road,  a  shorter  cut 
through  her  domain.  This  she  had  no  dif- 
ficulty in  recognizing  as  one  of  the  strangers 
who  were  getting  up  the  dance.  She  had 
noticed  him  at  church  on  the  previous  Sun- 
day. As  he  passed  the  house  he  appeared 
to  be  gazing  at  it  so  earnestly  that  she  drew 
back  from  the  window  lest  she  should  be 
seen.  And  then,  for  no  reason  whatever, 
she  changed  her  mind  once  more,  and  re- 
solved to  go  to  the  dance.  Gravely  announ- 
cing this  fact  to  the  wife  of  her  superintend- 
ent who  kept  house  with  her  in  her  lone- 
liness, she  thought  nothing  more  about 
it.  She  should  go  in  her  mourning,  with 
perhaps  the  addition  of  a  white  collar  and 
frill. 

It  was  evident,  however,  that  Santa  Ana 
thought  a  good  deal  more  than  she  did  of 
this  new  idea,  which  seemed  a  part  of  the 
innovation  already  begun  by  the  building 
up  of  the  new  hotel.  It  was  argued  by 
some  that  as  the  new  church  and  new  school - 
house  had  been  opened  by  prayer,  it  was 
only  natural  that  a  lighter  festivity  should 
inaugurate  the  opening  of  the  hotel.  "I 
reckon  that  dancin'  is  about  the  next  thins: 


78      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY 

to  travelin'  for  gettin'  up  an  appetite  for 
refreshments,  and  that 's  what  the  landlord 
is  kalkilatin'  to  sarve,"  was  the  remark  of  a 
gloomy  but  practical  citizen  on  the  veranda 
of  "The  Valley  Emporium."  "That  's 
so,"  rejoined  a  bystander;  "and  I  notice 
on  that  last  box  o'  pills  I  got  for  chills  the 
directions  say  that  a  little  '  agreeable  exer- 
cise '  —  not  too  violent  —  is  a  great  assist- 
ance to  the  working  o'  the  pills." 

"I  reckon  that  that  Mr.  Brooks  who's 
down  here  lookin'  arter  mill  property,  got 
up  the  dance.  He  's  bin  round  town  can- 
vassin'  all  the  women  folks  and  drummin' 
up  likely  gals  for  it.  They  say  he  actooally 
sent  an  invite  to  the  Widder  Wade,"  re- 
marked another  lounger.  "Gosh!  he's  got 
cheek!" 

"Well,  gentlemen,"  said  the  proprietor 
judicially,  "while  we  don't  intend  to  hev 
any  minin'  camp  fandangos  or  'Frisco 
falals  round  Santa  Any  —  (Santa  Ana  was 
proud  of  its  simple  agricultural  virtues)  — 
I  ain't  so  hard-shelled  as  not  to  give  new 
things  a  fair  trial.  And,  after  all,  it 's  the 
women  folk  that  has  the  say  about  it. 
Why,  there  's  old  Miss  Ford  sez  she  hasn't 
kicked  a  fut  sence  she  left  Mizoori,  but 


A    WIDOW  OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY      79 

would  n't  mind  trying  it  agin.  Ez  to 
Brooks  takin'  that  trouble  —  well,  I  sup- 
pose it 's  along  o'  his  bein'  healthy  !  "  He 
heaved  a  deep  dyspeptic  sigh,  which  was 
faintly  echoed  by  the  others.  "Why,  look 
at  him  now,  ridin'  round  on  that  black  hoss 
o'  his,  in  the  wet  since  daylight  and  not 
carin'  for  blind  chills  or  rhumatiz!  " 

He  was  looking  at  a  serape-draped  horse- 
man, the  one  the  widow  had  seen  on  the 
previous  night,  who  was  now  cantering 
slowly  up  the  street.  Seeing  the  group  on 
the  veranda,  he  rode  up,  threw  himself 
lightly  from  his  saddle,  and  joined  them. 
He  was  an  alert,  determined,  good-looking 
fellow  of  about  thirty-five,  whose  smooth, 
smiling  face  hardly  commended  itself  to 
Santa  Ana,  though  his  eyes  were  distinctly 
sympathetic.  He  glanced  at  the  depressed 
group  around  him  and  became  ominously 
serious. 

"When  did  it  happen?"  he  asked 
gravely. 

"What  happen?"  said  the  nearest  by- 
stander. 

"The  Funeral,  Flood,  Fight,  or  Fire. 
Which  of  the  four  F's  was  it  ?  " 

"What  are  ye  talkin'  about?"  said  the 


80      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY 

proprietor  stiffly,  scenting  some  dangerous 
humor. 

"  You,"  said  Brooks  promptly.  "You  're 
all  standing  here,  croaking  like  crows,  this 
fine  morning.  I  passed  your  farm,  John- 
son, not  an  hour  ago ;  the  wheat  just  climb- 
ing out  of  the  black  adobe  mud  as  thick  as 
rows  of  pins  on  paper  —  what  have  you  to 
grumble  at?  I  saw  your  stock,  Briggs, 
over  on  Two-Mile  Bottom,  waddling  along, 
fat  as  the  adobe  they  were  sticking  in,  their 
coats  shining  like  fresh  paint  —  what's  the 
matter  with  you?  And,"  turning  to  the 
proprietor,  "there  's  your  shed,  Saunders, 
over  on  the  creek,  just  bursting  with  last 
year's  grain  that  you  know  has  gone  up  two 
hundred  per  cent,  since  you  bought  it  at  a 
bargain  —  what  are  you  growling  at?  It 's 
enough  to  provoke  a  fire  or  a  famine  to 
hear  you  groaning  —  and  take  care  it  don't, 
some  day,  as  a  lesson  to  you." 

All  this  was  so  perfectly  true  of  the  pros- 
perous burghers  that  they  could  not  for  a 
moment  reply.  But  Briggs  had  recourse  to 
what  he  believed  to  be  a  retaliatory  taunt. 

"I  heard  you  've  been  askin'  Widow 
Wade  to  come  to  your  dance,"  he  said,  with 
a  wink  at  the  others.  "  Of  course  she  said 
'Yes.'" 


A    WIDOW  OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY     81 

"Of  course  she  did,"  returned  Brooks 
coolly.  "I  've  just  got  her  note." 

"What?"  ejaculated  the  three  men  to- 
gether. "Mrs.  Wade  comin'?" 

"  Certainly !  Why  should  n  't  she  ?  And 
it  would  do  you  good  to  come  too,  and  shake 
the  limp  dampness  out  o'  you,"  returned 
Brooks,  as  he  quietly  remounted  his  horse 
and  cantered  away. 

"Darned  ef  I  don't  think  he's  got  his 
eye  on  the  widder,"  said  Johnson  faintly. 

"Or  the  quarter  section,"  added  Briggs 
gloomily. 

For  all  that,  the  eventful  evening  came, 
with  many  lights  in  the  staring,  undraped 
windows  of  the  hotel,  coldly  bright  bunting 
on  the  still  damp  walls  of  the  long  dining- 
room,  and  a  gentle  downpour  from  the  hid- 
den skies  above.  A  close  carryall  was  espe- 
cially selected  to  bring  Mrs.  Wade  and  her 
housekeeper.  The  widow  arrived,  looking 
a  little  slimmer  than  usual  in  her  closely 
buttoned  black  dress,  white  collar  and  cuffs, 
very  glistening  in  eye  and  in  hair,  —  whose 
glossy  black  ringlets  were  perhaps  more 
elaborately  arranged  than  was  her  custom, 
—  and  with  a  faint  coming  and  going  of 
color,  due  perhaps  to  her  agitation  at  this 


82      A    WIDOW  OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY 

tentative  reentering  into  worldly  life,  which 
was  nevertheless  quite  virginal  in  effect. 
A  vague  solemnity  pervaded  the  introduc- 
tory proceedings,  and  a  singular  want  of 
sociability  was  visible  in  the  "sociable" 
part  of  the  entertainment.  People  talked 
in  whispers  or  with  that  grave  precision 
which  indicates  good  manners  in  rural  com- 
munities; conversed  painfully  with  other 
people  whom  they  did  not  want  to  talk  to 
rather  than  appear  to  be  alone,  or  rushed 
aimlessly  together  like  water  drops,  and 
then  floated  in  broken,  adherent  masses  over 
the  floor.  The  widow  became  a  helpless, 
religious  centre  of  deacons  and  Sunday- 
school  teachers,  which  Brooks,  untiring,  yet 
fruitless,  in  his  attempt  to  produce  gayety, 
tried  in  vain  to  break.  To  this  gloom  the 
untried  dangers  of  the  impending  dance, 
duly  prefigured  by  a  lonely  cottage  piano 
and  two  violins  in  a  desert  of  expanse,  added 
a  nervous  chill.  When  at  last  the  music 
struck  up  —  somewhat  hesitatingly  and  pro- 
testingly,  from  the  circumstance  that  the 
player  was  the  church  organist,  and  fumbled 
mechanically  for  his  stops,  the  attempt  to 
make  up  a  cotillon  set  was  left  to  the  heroic 
Brooks.  Yet  he  barely  escaped  disaster 


A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY      83 

when,  in  posing  the  couples,  he  incautiously 
begged  them  to  look  a  little  less  as  if  they 
were  waiting  for  the  coffin  to  be  borne  down 
the  aisle  between  them,  and  was  rewarded 
by  a  burst  of  tears  from  Mrs.  Johnson,  who 
had  lost  a  child  two  years  before,  and  who 
had  to  be  led  away,  while  her  place  in  the 
set  was  taken  by  another.  Yet  the  cotillon 
passed  off;  a  Spanish  dance  succeeded; 
"Money musk,"  with  the  Virginia  Reel,  put 
a  slight  intoxicating  vibration  into  the  air, 
and  healthy  youth  at  last  asserted  itself  in 
a  score  of  freckled  but  buxom  girls  in  white 
muslin,  with  romping  figures  and  laughter, 
at  the  lower  end  of  the  room.  Still  a  rigid 
decorum  reigned  among  the  elder  dancers, 
and  the  figures  were  called  out  in  grave 
formality,  as  if,  to  Brooks' s  fancy,  they  were 
hymns  given  from  the  pulpit,  until  at  the 
close  of  the  set,  in  half -real,  half -mock  de- 
spair, he  turned  desperately  to  Mrs.  Wade, 
his  partner :  — 

"Do  you  waltz?" 

Mrs.  Wade  hesitated.  She  had,  before 
marriage,  and  was  a  good  waltzer.  "I  do," 
she  said  timidly,  "but  do  you  think  they  "  — 

But  before  the  poor  widow  could  formu- 
late her  fears  as  to  the  reception  of  "round 


84      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY 

dances,"  Brooks  had  darted  to  the  piano, 
and  the  next  moment  she  heard  with  a 
"fearful  joy"  the  opening  bars  of  a  waltz. 
It  was  an  old  Julien  waltz,  fresh  still  in  the 
fifties,  daring,  provocative  to  foot,  swamp- 
ing to  intellect,  arresting  to  judgment,  irre- 
sistible, supreme !  Before  Mrs.  Wade  could 
protest,  Brooks 's  arm  had  gathered  up  her 
slim  figure,  and  with  one  quick  backward 
sweep  and  swirl  they  were  off!  The  floor 
was  cleared  for  them  in  a  sudden  bewilder- 
ment of  alarm  —  a  suspense  of  burning 
curiosity.  The  widow's  little  feet  tripped 
quickly,  her  long  black  skirt  swung  out; 
as  she  turned  the  corner  there  was  not  only 
a  sudden  revelation  of  her  pretty  ankles, 
but,  what  was  more  startling,  a  dazzling 
flash  of  frilled  and  laced  petticoat,  which  at 
once  convinced  every  woman  in  the  room 
that  the  act  had  been  premeditated  for 
days!  Yet  even  that  criticism  was  pre- 
sently forgotten  in  the  pervading  intoxica- 
tion of  the  music  and  the  movement.  The 
younger  people  fell  into  it  with  wild  romp- 
ings,  whirlings,  and  clasping  of  hands  and 
waists.  And  stranger  than  all,  a  coryban- 
tic  enthusiasm  seized  upon  the  emotionally 
religious,  and  those  priests  and  priestesses 


A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY      85 

of  Cybele  who  were  famous  for  their  frenzy 
and  passion  in  camp-meeting  devotions 
seemed  to  find  an  equal  expression  that 
night  in  the  waltz.  And  when,  flushed  and 
panting,  Mrs.  Wade  at  last  halted  on  the 
arm  of  her  partner,  they  were  nearly 
knocked  over  by  the  revolving  Johnson  and 
Mrs.  Stubbs  in  a  whirl  of  gloomy  exulta- 
tion !  Deacons  and  Sunday-school  teachers 
waltzed  together  until  the  long  room  shook, 
and  the  very  bunting  on  the  walls  waved 
and  fluttered  with  the  gyrations  of  those 
religious  dervishes.  Nobody  knew  —  no- 
body cared  how  long  this  frenzy  lasted  —  it 
ceased  only  with  the  collapse  of  the  musi- 
cians. Then,  with  much  vague  bewilder- 
ment, inward  trepidation,  awkward  and  in- 
coherent partings,  everybody  went  dazedly 
home ;  there  was  no  other  dancing  after  that 
—  the  waltz  was  the  one  event  of  the  festi- 
val and  of  the  history  of  Santa  Ana.  And 
later  that  night,  when  the  timid  Mrs.  Wade, 
in  the  seclusion  of  her  own  room  and  the 
disrobing  of  her  slim  figure,  glanced  at  her 
spotless  frilled  and  laced  petticoat  lying  on 
a  chair,  a  faint  smile  —  the  first  of  her  wid- 
owhood —  curved  the  corners  of  her  pretty 
mouth. 


86      A    WIDOW  OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY 

A  week  of  ominous  silence  regarding  the 
festival  succeeded  in  Santa  Ana.  The  local 
paper  gave  the  fullest  particulars  of  the 
opening  of  the  hotel,  but  contented  itself 
with  saying:  "The  entertainment  concluded 
with  a  dance."  Mr.  Brooks,  who  felt  him- 
self compelled  to  call  upon  his  late  charming 
partner  twice  during  the  week,  characteris- 
tically soothed  her  anxieties  as  to  the  result. 
"The  fact  of  it  is,  Mrs.  Wade,  there's 
really  nobody  in  particular  to  blame  —  and 
that 's  what  gets  them.  They  're  all  mixed 
up  in  it,  deacons  and  Sunday-school  teach- 
ers ;  and  when  old  Johnson  tried  to  be  nasty 
the  other  evening  and  hoped  you  hadn't 
suffered  from  your  exertions  that  night,  I 
told  him  you  hadn't  quite  recovered  yet 
from  the  physical  shock  of  having  been  run 
into  by  him  and  Mrs.  Stubbs,  but  that,  you 
being  a  lady,  you  did  n't  tell  just  how  you 
felt  at  the  exhibition  he  and  she  made  of 
themselves.  That  shut  him  up." 

"But  you  shouldn't  have  said  that,"  said 
Mrs.  Wade  with  a  frightened  little  smile. 

"No  matter,"  returned  Brooks  cheerfully. 
"I  '11  take  the  blame  of  it  with  the  others. 
You  see  they  '11  have  to  have  a  scapegoat 
—  and  I  'm  just  the  man,  for  I  got  up  the 


A    WIDOW  OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY      87 

dance !  And  as  I  'm  going  away,  I  suppose 
I  shall  bear  off  the  sin  with  me  into  the 
wilderness." 

"You're  going  away?"  repeated  Mrs. 
Wade  in  more  genuine  concern. 

"Not  for  long,"  returned  Brooks  laugh- 
ingly. "I  came  here  to  look  up  a  mill  site, 
and  I  've  found  it.  Meantime  I  think  I  've 
opened  their  eyes." 

"You  have  opened  mine,"  said  the  widow 
with  timid  frankness. 

They  were  soft  pretty  eyes  when  opened, 
in  spite  of  their  heavy  red  lids,  and  Mr. 
Brooks  thought  that  Santa  Ana  would  be 
no  worse  if  they  remained  open.  Possibly 
he  looked  it,  for  Mrs.  Wade  said  hurriedly, 
"I  mean  —  that  is  —  I've  been  thinking 
that  life  needn't  always  be  as  gloomy  as 
we  make  it  here.  And  even  Acre,  you  know, 
Mr.  Brooks,  we  have  six  months'  sunshine 
—  though  we  always  forget  it  in  the  rainy 
season." 

"That 's  so,"  said  Brooks  cheerfully.  "I 
once  lost  a  heap  of  money  through  my  own 
foolishness,  and  I  've  managed  to  forget  it, 
and  I  even  reckon  to  get  it  back  again  out 
of  Santa  Ana  if  my  mill  speculation  holds 
good.  So  good-by,  Mrs.  Wade  —  but  not 


88      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY 

for  long."  He  shook  her  hand  frankly  and 
departed,  leaving  the  widow  conscious  of  a 
certain  sympathetic  confidence  and  a  little 
grateful  for  —  she  knew  not  what. 

This  feeling  remained  with  her  most  of 
the  afternoon,  and  even  imparted  a  certain 
gayety  to  her  spirits,  to  the  extent  of  caus- 
ing her  to  hum  softly  to  herself;  the  air 
being  oddly  enough  the  Julien  Waltz.  And 
when,  later  in  the  day,  the  shadows  were 
closing  in  with  the  rain,  word  was  brought 
to  her  that  a  stranger  wished  to  see  her  in 
the  sitting-room,  she  carried  a  less  mournful 
mind  to  this  function  of  her  existence.  For 
Mrs.  Wade  was  accustomed  to  give  audience 
to  traveling  agents,  tradesmen,  working- 
hands  and  servants,  as  chatelaine  of  her 
ranch,  and  the  occasion  was  not  novel. 
Yet  on  entering  the  room,  which  she  used 
partly  as  an  office,  she  found  some  difficulty 
in  classifying  the  stranger,  who  at  first 
glance  reminded  her  of  the  tramping  miner 
she  had  seen  that  night  from  her  window. 
He  was  rather  incongruously  dressed,  some 
articles  of  his  apparel  being  finer  than 
others;  he  wore  a  diamond  pin  in  a  scarf 
folded  over  a  rough  "hickory"  shirt;  his 
light  trousers  were  tucked  in  common  min- 


A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY     89 

ing  boots  that  bore  stains  of  travel  and  a 
suggestion  that  he  had  slept  in  his  clothes. 
What  she  could  see  of  his  unshaven  face 
in  that  uncertain  light  expressed  a  kind  of 
dogged  concentration,  overlaid  by  an  as- 
sumption of  ease.  He  got  up  as  she  came 
in,  and  with  a  slight  "How  do,  ma'am," 
shut  the  door  behind  her  and  glanced  fur- 
tively around  the  room. 

"What  I  've  got  to  say  to  ye,  Mrs.  Wade, 
—  as  I  reckon  you  be,  —  is  strictly  private 
and  confidential !  Why,  ye  '11  see  afore  I 
get  through.  But  I  thought  I  might  just 
as  well  caution  ye  agin  our  being  disturbed." 

Overcoming  a  slight  instinct  of  repulsion, 
Mrs.  Wade  returned,  "You  can  speak  to 
me  here ;  no  one  will  interrupt  you  —  unless 
I  call  them,"  she  added  with  a  little  femi- 
nine caution. 

"And  I  reckon  ye  won't  do  that,"  he 
said  with  a  grim  smile.  "You  are  the 
widow  o'  Pulaski  Wade,  late  o'  Heavy  Tree 
Hill,  I  reckon?" 

"I  am,"  said  Mrs.  Wade. 

"And  your  husband  's  buried  up  thar  in 
the  graveyard,  with  a  monument  over  him 
setting  forth  his  virtues  ez  a  Christian  and 
a  square  man  and  a  high-minded  citizen? 


90      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY 

And  that  he  was  foully  murdered  by  high- 
waymen? " 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Wade,  "that  is  the  in- 
scription." 

"Well,  ma'am,  a  bigger  pack  o'  lies 
never  was  cut  on  stone !  " 

Mrs.  Wade  rose,  half  in  indignation,  half 
in  terror. 

"Keep  your  sittin',"  said  the  stranger, 
with  a  warning  wave  of  his  hand.  "Wait 
till  I  'm  through,  and  then  you  call  in  the 
hull  State  o'  Californy,  ef  ye  want." 

The  stranger's  manner  was  so  doggedly 
confident  that  Mrs.  Wade  sank  back  trem- 
blingly in  her  chair.  The  man  put  his 
slouch  hat  on  his  knee,  twirled  it  round 
once  or  twice,  and  then  said  with  the  same 
stubborn  deliberation :  — 

"The  highwayman  in  that  business  was 
your  husband  —  Pulaski  Wade  —  and  his 
gang,  and  he  was  killed  by  one  o'  the  men 
he  was  robbin'.  Ye  see,  ma'am,  it  used  to 
be  your  husband's  little  game  to  rope  in 
three  or  four  strangers  in  a  poker  deal  at 
Spanish  Jim's  saloon  —  I  see  you  've  heard 
o'  the  place,"  he  interpolated  as  Mrs.  Wade 
drew  back  suddenly  —  "  and  when  he  could 
n't  clean  'em  out  in  that  way,  or  they 


A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY     91 

showed  a  little  more  money  than  they 
played,  he  'd  lay  for  'em  with  his  gang  in 
a  lone  part  of  the  trail,  and  go  through 
them  like  any  road  agent.  That 's  what  he 
did  that  night  —  and  that's  how  he  got 
killed." 

"How  do  you  know  this?"  said  Mrs. 
Wade,  with  quivering  lips. 

"  I  was  one  o'  the  men  he  went  through 
before  he  was  killed.  And  I  'd  hev  got  my 
money  back,  but  the  rest  o'  the  gang  came 
up,  and  I  got  away  jest  in  time  to  save  my 
life  and  nothin'  else.  Ye  might  remember 
thar  was  one  man  got  away  and  giv'  the 
alarm,  but  he  was  goin'  on  to  the  States 
by  the  overland  coach  that  night  and  could 
n't  stay  to  be  a  witness,  /was  that  man. 
I  had  paid  my  passage  through,  and  I  could 
n't  lose  that  too  with  my  other  money,  so 
I  went." 

Mrs.  Wade  sat  stunned.  She  remem- 
bered the  missing  witness,  and  how  she  had 
longed  to  see  the  man  who  was  last  with 
her  husband;  she  remembered  Spanish 
Jim's  saloon  —  his  well-known  haunt;  his 
frequent  and  unaccountable  absences,  the 
sudden  influx  of  money  which  he  always 
said  he  had  won  at  cards ;  the  diamond  ring 


92      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY 

he  had  given  her  as  the  result  of  "a  bet;" 
the  forgotten  recurrence  of  other  robberies 
by  a  secret  masked  gang;  a  hundred  other 
things  that  had  worried  her,  instinctively, 
vaguely.  She  knew  now,  too,  the  meaning 
of  the  unrest  that  had  driven  her  from 
Heavy  Tree  Hill  —  the  strange  unformu- 
lated  fears  that  had  haunted  her  even  here. 
Yet  with  all  this  she  felt,  too,  her  present 
weakness  —  knew  that  this  man  had  taken 
her  at  a  disadvantage,  that  she  ought  to 
indignantly  assert  herself,  deny  everything, 
demand  proof,  and  brand  him  a  slanderer! 

"  How  did  —  you  —  know  it  was  my  hus- 
band?" she  stammered. 

"His  mask  fell  off  in  the  fight;  you 
know  another  mask  was  found  —  it  was  his. 
I  saw  him  as  plainly  as  I  see  him  there ! " 
he  pointed  to  a  daguerreotype  of  her  hus- 
band which  stood  upon  her  desk. 

Mrs.  Wade  could  only  stare  vacantly, 
hopelessly.  After  a  pause  the  man  contin- 
ued in  a  less  aggressive  manner  and  more 
confidential  tone,  which,  however,  only  in- 
creased her  terror.  "I  ain't  sayin'  thatyow 
knowed  anything  about  this,  ma'am,  and 
whatever  other  folks  might  say  when  they 
know  of  it,  I  '11  allers  say  that  you  didn't." 


A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY     93 

"What,  then,  did  you  come  here  for?" 
said  the  widow  desperately. 

"What  do  I  come  here  for?"  repeated 
the  man  grimly,  looking  around  the  room ; 
"what  did  I  come  to  this  yer  comfortable 
home  —  this  yer  big  ranch  and  to  a  rich 
woman  like  yourself  for?  Well,  Mrs. 
Wade,  I  come  to  get  the  six  hundred  dollars 
your  husband  robbed  me  of,  that's  all!  I 
ain't  askin'  more!  I  ain't  askin'  interest! 
I  ain't  askin'  compensation  for  havin'  to 
run  for  my  life  —  and,"  again  looking 
grimly  round  the  walls,  "I  ain't  askin' 
more  than  you  will  give  —  or  is  my  rights." 

"But  this  house  never  was  his;  it  was 
my  father's,"  gasped  Mrs.  Wade;  "you 
have  no  right "  — 

"Mebbe  'yes'  and  mebbe  'no,'  Mrs. 
Wade,"  interrupted  the  man,  with  a  wave 
of  his  hat ;  "  but  how  about  them  two  checks 
to  bearer  for  two  hundred  dollars  each  found 
among  your  husband's  effects,  and  collected 
by  your  lawyer  for  you  —  my  checks,  Mrs. 
Wade?" 

A  wave  of  dreadful  recollection  over- 
whelmed her.  She  remembered  the  checks 
found  upon  her  husband's  body,  known  only 
to  her  and  her  lawyer,  believed  to  be  gam- 


94      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY 

bling  gains,  and  collected  at  once  under  his 
legal  advice.  Yet  she  made  one  more  de- 
sperate effort  in  spite  of  the  instinct  that 
told  her  he  was  speaking  the  truth. 

"  But  you  shall  have  to  prove  it  —  before 
witnesses." 

"Do  you  want  me  to  prove  it  before  wit- 
nesses?" said  the  man,  coming  nearer  her. 
"Do  you  want  to  take  my  word  and  keep 
it  between  ourselves,  or  do  you  want  to  call 
in  your  superintendent  and  his  men,  and 
all  Santy  Any,  to  hear  me  prove  your  hus- 
band was  a  highwayman,  thief,  and  mur- 
derer? Do  you  want  to  knock  over  that 
monument  on  Heavy  Tree  Hill,  and  upset 
your  standing  here  among  the  deacons  and 
elders?  Do  you  want  to  do  all  this  and  be 
forced,  even  by  your  neighbors,  to  pay  me 
in  the  end,  as  you  will?  Ef  you  do,  call  in 
your  witnesses  now  and  let 's  have  it  over. 
Mebbe  it  would  look  better  ef  I  got  the 
money  out  of  your  friends  than  ye  —  a 
woman!  P'raps  you  're  right!  " 

He  made  a  step  towards  the  door,  but 
she  stopped  him. 

"No!  no!  wait!  It's  a  large  sum — I 
haven't  it  with  me,"  she  stammered,  thor- 
oughly beaten. 


A    WIDOW  OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY     95 

"Ye  kin  get  it." 

"Give  me  time!"  she  implored.  "Look! 
I  '11  give  you  a  hundred  down  now,  —  all  I 
have  here,  —  the  rest  another  time !  "  She 
nervously  opened  a  drawer  of  her  desk  and 
taking  out  a  buckskin  bag  of  gold  thrust  it 
in  his  hand.  "There!  go  away  now!"  She 
lifted  her  thin  hands  despairingly  to  her 
head.  "Go!  do!" 

The  man  seemed  struck  by  her  manner. 
"I  don't  want  to  be  hard  on  a  woman,"  he 
said  slowly.  "I  '11  go  now  and  come  back 
again  at  nine  to-night.  You  can  git  the 
money,  or  what 's  as  good,  a  check  to 
bearer,  by  then.  And  ef  ye  '11  take  my  ad- 
vice, you  won't  ask  no  advice  from  others, 
ef  you  want  to  keep  your  secret.  Just  now 
it's  safe  with  me;  I 'm  a  square  man,  ef 
I  seem  to  be  a  hard  one."  He  made  a 
gesture  as  if  to  take  her  hand,  but  as  she 
drew  shrinkingly  away,  he  changed  it  to  an 
awkward  bow,  and  the  next  moment  was 
gone. 

She  started  to  her  feet,  but  the  unwonted 
strain  upon  her  nerves  and  frail  body  had 
been  greater  than  she  knew.  She  made 
a  step  forward,  felt  the  room  whirl  round 
her  and  then  seem  to  collapse  beneath  her 


96      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY 

feet,  and,  clutching  at  her  chair,  sank  back 
into  it,  fainting. 

How  long  she  lay  there  she  never  knew. 
She  was  at  last  conscious  of  some  one  bend- 
ing over  her,  and  a  voice  —  the  voice  of 
Mr.  Brooks  —  in  her  ear,  saying,  "I  beg 
your  pardon;  you  seem  ill.  Shall  I  call 
some  one  ?  " 

"No!"  she  gasped,  quickly  recovering 
herself  with  an  effort,  and  staring  round 
her.  "  Where  is  —  when  did  you  come 
in?" 

"Only  this  moment.  I  was  leaving  to- 
night, sooner  than  I  expected,  and  thought 
I  'd  say  good-by.  They  told  me  that  you 
had  been  engaged  with  a  stranger,  but 
he  had  just  gone.  I  beg  your  pardon  —  I 
see  you  are  ill.  I  won't  detain  you  any 
longer." 

"No!  no!  don't  go!  I  am  better  — 
better,"  she  said  feverishly.  As  she  glanced 
at  his  strong  and  sympathetic  face  a  wild 
idea  seized  her.  He  was  a  stranger  here, 
an  alien  to  these  people,  like  herself.  The 
advice  that  she  dare  not  seek  from  others, 
from  her  half -estranged  religious  friends, 
from  even  her  superintendent  and  his  wife, 
dare  she  ask  from  him?  Perhaps  he  saw 


A    WIDOW  OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY     97 

this  frightened  doubt,  this  imploring  appeal, 
in  her  eyes,  for  he  said  gently,  "  Is  it  any- 
thing I  can  do  for  you?  " 

"Yes,"  she  said,  with  the  sudden  despera- 
tion of  weakness;  "I  want  you  to  keep  a 
secret." 

"Yours?  —  yes!  "  he  said  promptly. 

Whereat  poor  Mrs.  Wade  instantly  burst 
into  tears.  Then,  amidst  her  sobs,  she  told 
him  of  the  stranger's  visit,  of  his  terrible 
accusations,  of  his  demands,  his  expected 
return,  and  her  own  utter  helplessness.  To 
her  terror,  as  she  went  on  she  saw  a  singu- 
lar change  in  his  kind  face ;  he  was  follow- 
ing her  with  hard,  eager  intensity.  She 
had  half  hoped,  even  through  her  fateful 
instincts,  that  he  might  have  laughed,  man- 
like, at  her  fears,  or  pooh-poohed  the  whole 
thing.  But  he  did  not.  "You  say  he 
positively  recognized  your  husband?"  he 
repeated  quickly. 

"Yes,  yes!"  sobbed  the  widow,  "and 
knew  that  daguerreotype ! "  she  pointed  to 
the  desk. 

Brooks  turned  quickly  in  that  direction. 
Luckily  his  back  was  towards  her,  and  she 
could  not  see  his  face,  and  the  quick,  startled 
look  that  came  into  his  eyes.  But  when 


98      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY 

they  again  met  hers,  it  was  gone,  and  even 
their  eager  intensity  had  changed  to  a  gen- 
tle commiseration.  "You  have  only  his 
word  for  it,  Mrs.  Wade,"  he  said  gently, 
"and  in  telling  your  secret  to  another,  you 
have  shorn  the  rascal  of  half  his  power  over 
you.  And  he  knew  it.  Now,  dismiss  the 
matter  from  your  mind  and  leave  it  all  to 
me.  I  will  be  here  a  few  minutes  before 
nine  —  and  alone  in  this  room.  Let  your 
visitor  be  shown  in  here,  and  don't  let  us 
be  disturbed.  Don't  be  alarmed,"  he  added 
with  a  faint  twinkle  in  his  eye,  "there  will 
be  no  fuss  and  no  exposure !  " 

It  lacked  a  few  minutes  of  nine  when 
Mr.  Brooks  was  ushered  into  the  sitting- 
room.  As  soon  as  he  was  alone  he  quietly 
examined  the  door  and  the  windows,  and 
having  satisfied  himself,  took  his  seat  in 
a  chair  casually  placed  behind  the  door. 
Presently  he  heard  the  sound  of  voices  and 
a  heavy  footstep  in  the  passage.  He  lightly 
felt  his  waistcoat  pocket  —  it  contained  a 
pretty  little  weapon  of  power  and  precision, 
with  a  barrel  scarcely  two  inches  long. 

The  door  opened,  and  the  person  outside 
entered  the  room.  In  an  instant  Brooks 


A    WIDOW  OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLEY      99 

had  shut  the  door  and  locked  it  behind  him. 
The  man  turned  fiercely,  but  was  faced  by 
Brooks  quietly,  with  one  finger  calmly 
hooked  in  his  waistcoat  pocket.  The  man 
slightly  recoiled  from  him  —  not  as  much 
from  fear  as  from  some  vague  stupefaction. 
"What's  that  for?  What's  your  little 
game?  "  he  said  half  contemptuously. 

"No  game  at  all,"  returned  Brooks  coolly. 
"You  came  here  to  sell  a  secret.  I  don't 
propose  to  have  it  given  away  first  to  any 
listener." 

"  You  don't  —  who  are  you  ?  " 

"That's  a  queer  question  to  ask  of  the 
man  you  are  trying  to  personate  —  but  I 
don't  wonder!  You're  doing  it  d — d 
badly." 

"Personate  —  you?"  said  the  stranger, 
with  staring  eyes. 

"Yes,  me,"  said  Brooks  quietly.  "I  am 
the  only  man  who  escaped  from  the  robbery 
that  night  at  Heavy  Tree  Hill  and  who 
went  home  by  the  Overland  Coach." 

The  stranger  stared,  but  recovered  him- 
self with  a  coarse  laugh.  "  Oh,  well  I  we  're 
on  the  same  lay,  it  appears!  Both  after 
the  widow  —  afore  we  show  up  her  hus- 
band." 


100      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY 

"Not  exactly,"  said  Brooks,  with  his 
eyes  fixed  intently  on  the  stranger.  "You 
are  here  to  denounce  a  highwayman  who  is 
dead  and  escaped  justice.  I  am  here  to 
denounce  one  who  is  living  !  —  Stop !  drop 
your  hand ;  it 's  no  use.  You  thought  you 
had  to  deal  only  with  a  woman  to-night, 
and  your  revolver  is  n't  quite  handy  enough. 
There !  down !  —  down !  So !  That  '11  do." 

"You  can't  prove  it,"  said  the  man 
hoarsely. 

"  Fool !  In  your  story  to  that  woman  you 
have  given  yourself  away.  There  were  but 
two  travelers  attacked  by  the  highwaymen. 
One  was  killed  —  I  am  the  other.  Where 
do  you  come  in?  What  witness  can  you 
be  —  except  as  the  highwayman  that  you 
are  ?  Who  is  left  to  identify  Wade  but  — 
his  accomplice !  " 

The  man's  suddenly  whitened  face  made 
his  unshaven  beard  seem  to  bristle  over  his 
face  like  some  wild  animal's.  "Well,  ef 
you  kalkilate  to  blow  me,  you  've  got  to 
blow  Wade  and  his  widder  too.  Jest  you 
remember  that,"  he  said  whiningly. 

"I've  thought  of  that,"  said  Brooks 
coolly,  "and  I  calculate  that  to  prevent  it 
is  worth  about  that  hundred  dollars  you  got 


A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA   ANA    VALLEY      101 

from  that  poor  woman  —  and  no  more ! 
Now,  sit  down  at  that  table,  and  write  as 
I  dictate." 

The  man  looked  at  him  in  wonder,  but 
obeyed. 

"Write,"  said  Brooks,  '"I  hereby  cer- 
tify that  my  accusations  against  the  late 
Pulaski  Wade  of  Heavy  Tree  Hill  are  er- 
roneous and  groundless,  and  the  result  of 
mistaken  identity,  especially  in  regard  to 
any  complicity  of  his  in  the  robbery  of  John 
Stubbs,  deceased,  and  Henry  Brooks,  at 
Heavy  Tree  Hill,  on  the  night  of  the  13th 
August,  1854.'" 

The  man  looked  up  with  a  repulsive  smile. 
"Who's  the  fool  now,  Cap'n?  What's 
become  of  your  hold  on  the  widder,  now?  " 

"Write!  "  said  Brooks  fiercely. 

The  sound  of  a  pen  hurriedly  scratching 
paper  followed  this  first  outburst  of  the 
quiet  Brooks. 

"Sign  it,"  said  Brooks. 

The  man  signed  it. 

"Now  go,"  said  Brooks,  unlocking  the 
door,  "but  remember,  if  you  should  ever 
be  inclined  to  revisit  Santa  Ana,  you  will 
find  me  living  here  also." 

The  man  slunk  out  of  the  door  and  into 


102      A    WIDOW   OF  SANTA  ANA    VALLETf 

the  passage  like  a  wild  animal  returning  to 
the  night  and  darkness.  Brooks  took  up 
the  paper,  rejoined  Mrs.  Wade  in  the  par- 
lor, and  laid  it  before  her. 

"But,"  said  the  widow,  trembling  even 
in  her  joy,  "do  you  —  do  you  think  he  was 
really  mistaken?  " 

"Positive,"  said  Brooks  coolly.  "It's 
true,  it 's  a  mistake  that  has  cost  you  a 
hundred  dollars,  but  there  are  some  mis- 
takes that  are  worth  that  to  be  kept  quiet." 

They  were  married  a  year  later;  but  there 
is  no  record  that  in  after  years  of  conjugal 
relations  with  a  weak,  charming,  but  some- 
times trying  woman,  Henry  Brooks  was 
ever  tempted  to  tell  her  the  whole  truth  of 
the  robbery  of  Heavy  Tree  Hill. 


THE  MERMAID  OF    LIGHTHOUSE 
POINT 

SOME  forty  years  ago,  on  the  northern 
coast  of  California,  near  the  Golden  Gate, 
stood  a  lighthouse.  Of  a  primitive  class, 
since  superseded  by  a  building  more  iu 
keeping  with  the  growing  magnitude  of  the 
adjacent  port,  it  attracted  little  attention 
from  the  desolate  shore,  and,  it  was  alleged, 
still  less  from  the  desolate  sea  beyond.  A 
gray  structure  of  timber,  stone,  and  glass, 
it  was  buffeted  and  harried  by  the  constant 
trade  winds,  baked  by  the  unclouded  six 
months'  sun,  lost  for  a  few  hours  in  the 
afternoon  sea-fog,  and  laughed  over  by  cir- 
cling guillemots  from  the  Farallones.  It 
was  kept  by  a  recluse  —  a  preoccupied  man 
of  scientific  tastes,  who,  in  shameless  con- 
trast to  his  fellow  immigrants,  had  applied 
to  the  government  for  this  scarcely  lucra- 
tive position  as  a  means  of  securing  the 
seclusion  he  valued  more  than  gold.  Some 
believed  that  he  was  the  victim  of  an  early 
disappointment  in  love  —  a  view  charitably 


104      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

taken  by  those  who  also  believed  that  the 
government  would  not  have  appointed  "a 
crank"  to  a  position  of  responsibility. 
Howbeit,  he  fulfilled  his  duties,  and,  with 
the  assistance  of  an  Indian,  even  cultivated 
a  small  patch  of  ground  beside  the  light- 
house. His  isolation  was  complete !  There 
was  little  to  attract  wanderers  here:  the 
nearest  mines  were  fifty  miles  away;  the 
virgin  forest  on  the  mountains  inland  were 
penetrated  only  by  sawmills  and  woodmen 
from  the  Bay  settlements,  equally  remote. 
Although  by  the  shore-line  the  lights  of  the 
great  port  were  sometimes  plainly  visible, 
yet  the  solitude  around  him  was  peopled 
only  by  Indians,  —  a  branch  of  the  great 
northern  tribe  of  "root-diggers," — peace- 
ful and  simple  in  their  habits,  as  yet  undis- 
turbed by  the  white  man,  nor  stirred  into  an- 
tagonism by  aggression.  Civilization  only 
touched  him  at  stated  intervals,  and  then 
by  the  more  expeditious  sea  from  the  gov- 
ernment boat  that  brought  him  supplies. 
But  for  his  contiguity  to  the  perpetual  tur- 
moil of  wind  and  sea,  he  might  have  passed 
a  restful  Arcadian  life  in  his  surroundings; 
for  even  his  solitude  was  sometimes  haunted 
by  this  faint  reminder  of  the  great  port 


MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      105 

hard  by  that  pulsated  with  an  equal  unrest. 
Nevertheless,  the  sands  before  his  door  and 
the  rocks  behind  him  seemed  to  have  been 
untrodden  by  any  other  white  man's  foot 
since  their  upheaval  from  the  ocean.  It 
was  true  that  the  little  bay  beside  him  was 
marked  on  the  map  as  "Sir  Francis  Drake's 
Bay,"  tradition  having  located  it  as  the 
spot  where  that  ingenious  pirate  and  empire- 
maker  had  once  landed  his  vessels  and 
scraped  the  barnacles  from  his  adventurous 
keels.  But  of  this  Edgar  Pomfrey  —  or 
"Captain  Pomfrey,"  as  he  was  called  by 
virtue  of  his  half -nautical  office  —  had 
thought  little. 

For  the  first  six  months  he  had  thoroughly 
enjoyed  his  seclusion.  In  the  company  of 
his  books,  of  which  he  had  brought  such  a 
fair  store  that  their  shelves  lined  his  snug 
corners  to  the  exclusion  of  more  comfortable 
furniture,  he  found  his  principal  recreation. 
Even  his  unwonted  manual  labor,  the  trim- 
ming of  his  lamp  and  cleaning  of  his  reflec- 
tors, and  his  personal  housekeeping,  in 
which  his  Indian  help  at  times  assisted,  he 
found  a  novel  and  interesting  occupation. 
For  outdoor  exercise,  a  ramble  on  the  sands, 
a  climb  to  the  rocky  upland,  or  a  pull  in 


106      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

the  lighthouse  boat,  amply  sufficed  him. 
"Crank"  as  he  was  supposed  to  be,  he  was 
sane  enough  to  guard  against  any  of  those 
early  lapses  into  barbarism  which  marked 
the  lives  of  some  solitary  gold-miners.  His 
own  taste,  as  well  as  the  duty  of  his  office, 
kept  his  person  and  habitation  sweet  and 
clean,  and  his  habits  regular.  Even  the 
little  cultivated  patch  of  ground  on  the  lee 
side  of  the  tower  was  symmetrical  and  well 
ordered.  Thus  the  outward  light  of  Cap- 
tain Pomfrey  shone  forth  over  the  wilder- 
ness of  shore  and  wave,  even  like  his  beacon, 
whatever  his  inward  illumination  may  have 
been. 

It  was  a  bright  summer  morning,  remark- 
able even  in  the  monotonous  excellence  of 
the  season,  with  a  slight  touch  of  warmth 
which  the  invincible  Northwest  Trades  had 
not  yet  chilled.  There  was  still  a  faint 
haze  off  the  coast,  as  if  last  night's  fog  had 
been  caught  in  the  quick  sunshine,  and  the 
shining  sands  were  hot,  but  without  the 
usual  dazzling  glare.  A  faint  perfume 
from  a  quaint  lilac-colored  beach-flower, 
whose  clustering  heads  dotted  the  sand  like 
bits  of  blown  spume,  took  the  place  of  that 
smell  of  the  sea  which  the  odorless  Pacific 


MERMAID   OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      107 

lacked.  A  few  rocks,  half  a  mile  away, 
lifted  themselves  above  the  ebb  tide  at  vary- 
ing heights  as  they  lay  on  the  trough  of  the 
swell,  were  crested  with  foam  by  a  striking 
surge,  or  cleanly  erased  in  the  full  sweep 
of  the  sea.  Beside,  and  partly  upon  one 
of  the  higher  rocks,  a  singular  object  was 
moving. 

Pomfrey  was  interested  but  not  startled. 
He  had  once  or  twice  seen  seals  disporting 
on  these  rocks,  and  on  one  occasion  a  sea- 
lion,  —  an  estray  from  the  familiar  rocks  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Golden  Gate.  But  he 
ceased  work  in  his  garden  patch,  and  com- 
ing to  his  house,  exchanged  his  hoe  for  a 
telescope.  When  he  got  the  mystery  in 
focus  he  suddenly  stopped  and  rubbed  the 
object-glass  with  his  handkerchief.  But 
even  when  he  applied  the  glass  to  his  eye 
for  a  second  time,  he  could  scarcely  believe 
his  eyesight.  For  the  object  seemed  to  be 
a  woman,  the  lower  part  of  her  figure  sub- 
merged in  the  sea,  her  long  hair  depending 
over  her  shoulders  and  waist.  There  was 
nothing  in  her  attitude  to  suggest  terror  or 
that  she  was  the  victim  of  some  accident. 
She  moved  slowly  and  complacently  with 
the  sea,  and  even  —  a  more  staggering  sug- 


108      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

gestion  —  appeared  to  be  combing  out  the 
strands  of  her  long  hair  with  her  fingers. 
With  her  body  half  concealed  she  might 
have  been  a  mermaid ! 

He  swept  the  foreshore  and  horizon  with 
his  glass;  there  was  neither  boat  nor  ship 
—  nor  anything  that  moved,  except  the 
long  swell  of  the  Pacific.  She  could  have 
come  only  from  the  sea;  for  to  reach  the 
rocks  by  land  she  would  have  had  to  pass 
before  the  lighthouse,  while  the  narrow  strip 
of  shore  which  curved  northward  beyond 
his  range  of  view  he  knew  was  inhabited 
only  by  Indians.  But  the  woman  was  un- 
hesitatingly and  appallingly  white,  and  her 
hair  light  even  to  a  golden  gleam  in  the 
sunshine. 

Pomfrey  was  a  gentleman,  and  as  such 
was  amazed,  dismayed,  and  cruelly  embar- 
rassed. If  she  was  a  simple  bather  from 
some  vicinity  hitherto  unknown  and  unsus- 
pected by  him,  it  was  clearly  his  business 
to  shut  up  his  glass  and  go  back  to  his 
garden  patch  —  although  the  propinquity  of 
himself  and  the  lighthouse  must  have  been 
as  plainly  visible  to  her  as  she  was  to  him. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  she  was  the  survivor 
of  some  wreck  and  in  distress  —  or,  as  he 


MERMAID   OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      109 

even  fancied  from  her  reckless  manner,  be- 
reft of  her  senses,  his  duty  to  rescue  her 
was  equally  clear.  In  his  dilemma  he  de- 
termined upon  a  compromise  and  ran  to  his 
boat.  He  would  pull  out  to  sea,  pass  be- 
tween the  rocks  and  the  curving  sand-spit, 
and  examine  the  sands  and  sea  more  closely 
for  signs  of  wreckage,  or  some  overlooked 
waiting  boat  near  the  shore.  He  would 
be  within  hail  if  she  needed  him,  or  she 
could  escape  to  her  boat  if  she  had  one. 

In  another  moment  his  boat  was  lifting 
on  the  swell  towards  the  rocks.  He  pulled 
quickly,  occasionally  turning  to  note  that 
the  strange  figure,  whose  movements  were 
quite  discernible  to  the  naked  eye,  was  still 
there,  but  gazing  more  earnestly  towards 
the  nearest  shore  for  any  sign  of  life  or 
occupation.  In  ten  minutes  he  had  reached 
the  curve  where  the  trend  opened  north- 
ward, and  the  long  line  of  shore  stretched 
before  him.  He  swept  it  eagerly  with  a 
single  searching  glance.  Sea  and  shore 
were  empty.  He  turned  quickly  to  the 
rock,  scarcely  a  hundred  yards  on  his  beam. 
It  was  empty  too !  Forgetting  his  previous 
scruples,  he  pulled  directly  for  it  until  his 
keel  grated  on  its  submerged  base.  There 


110      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

was  nothing  there  but  the  rock,  slippery 
with  the  yellow-green  slime  of  seaweed  and 
kelp  —  neither  trace  nor  sign  of  the  figure 
that  had  occupied  it  a  moment  ago.  He 
pulled  around  it ;  there  was  no  cleft  or 
hiding  -  place.  For  an  instant  his  heart 
leaped  at  the  sight  of  something  white, 
caught  in  a  jagged  tooth  of  the  outlying 
reef,  but  it  was  only  the  bleached  fragment 
of  a  bamboo  orange -crate,  cast  from  the 
deck  of  some  South  Sea  trader,  such  as 
often  strewed  the  beach.  He  lay  off  the 
rock,  keeping  way  in  the  swell,  and  scruti- 
nizing the  glittering  sea.  At  last  he  pulled 
back  to  the  lighthouse,  perplexed  and  dis- 
comfited. 

Was  it  simply  a  sporting  seal,  trans- 
formed by  some  trick  of  his  vision?  But 
he  had  seen  it  through  his  glass,  and  now 
remembered  such  details  as  the  face  and 
features  framed  in  their  contour  of  golden 
hair,  and  believed  he  could  even  have  iden- 
tified them.  He  examined  the  rock  again 
with  his  glass,  and  was  surprised  to  see  how 
clearly  it  was  outlined  now  in  its  barren 
loneliness.  Yet  he  must  have  been  mis- 
taken. His  scientific  and  accurate  mind 
allowed  of  no  errant  fancy,  and  he  had  al- 


MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE   POINT      111 

ways  sneered  at  the  marvelous  as  the  result 
of  hasty  or  superficial  observation.  He 
was  a  little  worried  at  this  lapse  of  his 
healthy  accuracy,  —  fearing  that  it  might  be 
the  result  of  his  seclusion  and  loneliness,  — 
akin  to  the  visions  of  the  recluse  and  soli- 
tary. It  was  strange,  too,  that  it  should 
take  the  shape  of  a  woman;  for  Edgar 
Pomfrey  had  a  story  —  the  usual  old  and 
foolish  one. 

Then  his  thoughts  took  a  lighter  phase, 
and  he  turned  to  the  memory  of  his  books, 
and  finally  to  the  books  themselves.  From 
a  shelf  he  picked  out  a  volume  of  old  voy- 
ages, and  turned  to  a  remembered  passage : 
"In  other  seas  doe  abound  marvells  soche 
as  Sea  Spyders  of  the  bigness  of  a  pinnace, 
the  wich  they  have  been  known  to  attack 
and  destroy;  Sea  Vypers  which  reach  to 
the  top  of  a  goodly  maste,  whereby  they  are 
able  to  draw  marinners  from  the  rigging  by 
the  suction  of  their  breathes;  and  Devill 
Fyshe,  which"  vomit  fire  by  night  which 
makyth  the  sea  to  shine  prodigiously,  and 
mermaydes.  They  are  half  fyshe  and  half 
mayde  of  grate  Beauty,  and  have  been  seen 
of  divers  godly  and  creditable  witnesses 
swymming  beside  rocks,  hidden  to  their 


112      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

waist  in  the  sea,  combing  of  their  hayres, 
to  the  help  of  whych  they  carry  a  small 
mirrore  of  the  bigness  of  their  fingers." 
Pomfrey  laid  the  book  aside  with  a  faint 
smile.  To  even  this  credulity  he  might 
come ! 

Nevertheless,  he  used  the  telescope  again 
that  day.  But  there  was  no  repetition  of 
the  incident,  and  he  was  forced  to  believe 
that  he  had  been  the  victim  of  some  extraor- 
dinary illusion.  The  next  morning,  how- 
ever, with  his  calmer  judgment  doubts  be- 
gan to  visit  him.  There  was  no  one  of 
whom  he  could  make  inquiries  but  his  In- 
dian helper,  and  their  conversation  had 
usually  been  restricted  to  the  language  of 
signs  or  the  use  of  a  few  words  he  had 
picked  up.  He  contrived,  however,  to  ask 
if  there  was  a  "waugee"  (white)  woman  in 
the  neighborhood.  The  Indian  shook  his 
head  in  surprise.  There  was  no  "waugee" 
nearer  than  the  remote  mountain-ridge  to 
which  he  pointed.  Pomfrey  was  obliged  to 
be  content  with  this.  Even  had  his  vocab- 
ulary been  larger,  he  would  as  soon  have 
thought  of  revealing  the  embarrassing  secret 
of  this  woman,  whom  he  believed  to  be  of 
his  own  race,  to  a  mere  barbarian  as  he 


MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      113 

would  of  asking  him  to  verify  his  own  im- 
pressions by  allowing  him  to  look  at  her 
that  morning.  The  next  day,  however, 
something  happened  which  forced  him  to 
resume  his  inquiries.  He  was  rowing 
around  the  curving  spot  when  he  saw  a 
number  of  black  objects  on  the  northern 
sands  moving  in  and  out  of  the  surf,  which 
he  presently  made  out  as  Indians.  A  nearer 
approach  satisfied  him  that  they  were  wad- 
ing squaws  and  children  gathering  seaweed 
and  shells.  He  would  have  pushed  his  ac- 
quaintance still  nearer,  but  as  his  boat 
rounded  the  point,  with  one  accord  they  all 
scuttled  away  like  frightened  sandpipers. 
Pomfrey,  on  his  return,  asked  his  Indian 
retainer  if  they  could  swim.  "  Oh,  yes!  " 
"As  far  as  the  rock?  "  "Yes."  Yet  Pom- 
frey was  not  satisfied.  The  color  of  his 
strange  apparition  remained  unaccounted 
for,  and  it  was  not  that  of  an  Indian  woman. 
Trifling  events  linger  long  in  a  monoto- 
nous existence,  and  it  was  nearly  a  week 
before  Pomfrey  gave  up  his  daily  telescopic 
inspection  of  the  rock.  Then  he  fell  back 
upon  his  books  again,  and,  oddly  enough, 
upon  another  volume  of  voyages,  and  so 
chanced  upon  the  account  of  Sir  Francis 


114      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

Drake's  occupation  of  the  bay  before  him. 
He  had  always  thought  it  strange  that  the 
great  adventurer  had  left  no  trace  or  sign 
of  his  sojourn  there;  still  stranger  that  he 
should  have  overlooked  the  presence  of 
gold,  known  even  to  the  Indians  themselves, 
and  have  lost  a  discovery  far  beyond  his 
wildest  dreams  and  a  treasure  to  which  the 
cargoes  of  those  Philippine  galleons  he  had 
more  or  less  successfully  intercepted  were 
trifles.  Had  the  restless  explorer  been  con- 
tent to  pace  those  dreary  sands  during  three 
weeks  of  inactivity,  with  no  thought  of  pen- 
etrating the  inland  forests  behind  the  range, 
or  of  even  entering  the  nobler  bay  beyond? 
Or  was  the  location  of  the  spot  a  mere 
tradition  as  wild  and  unsupported  as  the 
"mar veils  "  of  the  other  volume?  Pomfrey 
had  the  skepticism  of  the  scientific,  inquir- 
ing mind. 

Two  weeks  had  passed  and  he  was  return- 
ing from  a  long  climb  inland,  when  he 
stopped  to  rest  in  his  descent  to  the  sea. 
The  panorama  of  the  shore  was  before  him, 
from  its  uttermost  limit  to  the  lighthouse 
on  the  northern  point.  The  sun  was  still 
one  hour  high,  it  would  take  him  about  that 
time  to  reach  home.  But  from  this  coign 


MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      115 

of  vantage  he  could  see  —  what  he  had  not 
before  observed  —  that  what  he  had  always 
believed  was  a  little  cove  on  the  northern 
shore  was  really  the  estuary  of  a  small 
stream  which  rose  near  him  and  eventually 
descended  into  the  ocean  at  that  point.  He 
could  also  see  that  beside  it  was  a  long  low 
erection  of  some  kind,  covered  with  thatched 
brush,  which  looked  like  a  "barrow,"  yet 
showed  signs  of  habitation  in  the  slight 
smoke  that  rose  from  it  and  drifted  inland. 
It  was  not  far  out  of  his  way,  and  he  re- 
solved to  return  in  that  direction.  On  his 
way  down  he  once  or  twice  heard  the  bark- 
ing of  an  Indian  dog,  and  knew  that  he 
must  be  in  the  vicinity  of  an  encampment. 
A  camp-fire,  with  the  ashes  yet  warm, 
proved  that  he  was  on  the  trail  of  one  of 
the  nomadic  tribes,  but  the  declining  sun 
warned  him  to  hasten  home  to  his  duty. 
When  he  at  last  reached  the  estuary,  he 
found  that  the  building  beside  it  was  little 
else  than  a  long  hut,  whose  thatched  and 
mud-plastered  mound-like  roof  gave  it  the 
appearance  of  a  cave.  Its  single  opening 
and  entrance  abutted  on  the  water's  edge, 
and  the  smoke  he  had  noticed  rolled  through 
this  entrance  from  a  smouldering  fire  within. 


116      MERMAID    OF   LIGHTHOUSE   POINT 

Pomfrey  had  little  difficulty  in  recognizing 
the  purpose  of  this  strange  structure  from 
the  accounts  he  had  heard  from  "loggers" 
of  the  Indian  customs.  The  cave  was  a 
"sweat-house"  —  a  calorific  chamber  in 
which  the  Indians  closely  shut  themselves, 
naked,  with  a  "smudge"  or  smouldering 
fire  of  leaves,  until,  perspiring  and  half 
suffocated,  they  rushed  from  the  entrance 
and  threw  themselves  into  the  water  before 
it.  The  still  smouldering  fire  told  him  that 
the  house  had  been  used  that  morning,  and 
he  made  no  doubt  that  the  Indians  were  en- 
camped near  by.  He  would  have  liked  to 
pursue  his  researches  further,  but  he  found 
he  had  already  trespassed  upon  his  remain- 
ing time,  and  he  turned  somewhat  abruptly 
away  —  so  abruptly,  in  fact,  that  a  figure, 
which  had  evidently  been  cautiously  follow- 
ing him  at  a  distance,  had  not  time  to  get 
away.  His  heart  leaped  with  astonishment. 
It  was  the  woman  he  had  seen  on  the  rock. 

Although  her  native  dress  now  only  dis- 
closed her  head  and  hands,  there  was  no 
doubt  about  her  color,  and  it  was  distinctly 
white,  save  for  the  tanning  of  exposure  and 
a  slight  red  ochre  marking  on  her  low  fore- 
head. And  her  hair,  long  and  unkempt  as 


MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE   POINT      117 

it  was,  showed  that  he  had  not  erred  in  his 
first  impression  of  it.  It  was  a  tawny 
flaxen,  with  fainter  bleachings  where  the 
sun  had  touched  it  most.  Her  eyes  were 
of  a  clear  Northern  blue.  Her  dress,  which 
was  quite  distinctive  in  that  it  was  neither 
the  cast  off  finery  of  civilization  nor  the 
cheap  "government"  flannels  and  calicoes 
usually  worn  by  the  Californian  tribes,  was 
purely  native,  and  of  fringed  deerskin,  and 
consisted  of  a  long,  loose  shirt  and  leggings 
worked  with  bright  feathers  and  colored 
shells.  A  necklace,  also  of  shells  and  fancy 
pebbles,  hung  round  her  neck.  She  seemed 
to  be  a  fully  developed  woman,  in  spite  of 
the  girlishness  of  her  flowing  hair,  and 
notwithstanding  the  shapeless  length  of  her 
gaberdine -like  garment,  taller  than  the  ordi- 
nary squaw. 

Pomfrey  saw  all  this  in  a  single  flash  of 
perception,  for  the  next  instant  she  was 
gone,  disappearing  behind  the  sweat-house. 
He  ran  after  her,  catching  sight  of  her 
again,  half  doubled  up,  in  the  characteris- 
tic Indian  trot,  dodging  around  rocks  and 
low  bushes  as  she  fled  along  the  banks  of 
the  stream.  But  for  her  distinguishing 
hair,  she  looked  in  her  flight  like  an  ordi- 


118      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

nary  frightened  squaw.  This,  which  gave 
a  sense  of  unmanliness  and  ridicule  to  his 
own  pursuit  of  her,  with  the  fact  that  his 
hour  of  duty  was  drawing  near  and  he  was 
still  far  from  the  lighthouse,  checked  him 
in  full  career,  and  he  turned  regretfully 
away.  He  had  called  after  her  at  first, 
and  she  had  not  heeded  him.  What  he 
would  have  said  to  her  he  did  not  know. 
He  hastened  home  discomfited,  even  em- 
barrassed —  yet  excited  to  a  degree  he  had 
not  deemed  possible  in  himself. 

During  the  morning  his  thoughts  were 
full  of  her.  Theory  after  theory  for  her 
strange  existence  there  he  examined  and 
dismissed.  His  first  thought,  that  she  was 
a  white  woman  —  some  settler's  wife  — 
masquerading  in  Indian  garb,  he  aban- 
doned when  he  saw  her  moving;  no  white 
woman  could  imitate  that  Indian  trot,  nor 
would  remember  to  attempt  it  if  she  were 
frightened.  The  idea  that  she  was  a  cap- 
tive white,  held  by  the  Indians,  became 
ridiculous  when  he  thought  of  the  nearness 
of  civilization  and  the  peaceful,  timid  char- 
acter of  the  "digger  "  tribes.  That  she  was 
some  unfortunate  demented  creature  who 
had  escaped  from  her  keeper  and  wandered 


MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      119 

into  the  wilderness,  a  glance  at  her  clear, 
frank,  intelligent,  curious  eyes  had  contra- 
dicted. There  was  but  one  theory  left  — 
the  most  sensible  and  practical  one  —  that 
she  was  the  offspring  of  some  white  man 
and  Indian  squaw.  Yet  this  he  found, 
oddly  enough,  the  least  palatable  to  his 
fancy.  And  the  few  half-breeds  he  had 
seen  were  not  at  all  like  her. 

The  next  morning  he  had  recourse  to  his 
Indian  retainer,  "Jim."  With  infinite 
difficulty,  protraction,  and  not  a  little  em- 
barrassment, he  finally  made  him  under- 
stand that  he  had  seen  a  "white  squaw" 
near  the  "sweat-house,"  and  that  he  wanted 
to  know  more  about  her.  With  equal  dif- 
ficulty Jim  finally  recognized  the  fact  of 
the  existence  of  such  a  person,  but  imme- 
diately afterwards  shook  his  head  in  an  em- 
phatic negation.  With  greater  difficulty 
and  greater  mortification  Pomf  rey  presently 
ascertained  that  Jim's  negative  referred  to 
a  supposed  abduction  of  the  woman  which 
he  understood  that  his  employer  seriously 
contemplated.  But  he  also  learned  that 
she  was  a  real  Indian,  and  that  there  were 
three  or  four  others  like  her,  male  and  fe- 
male, in  that  vicinity ;  that  from  a  "  skeena 


120      MERMAID   OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

mo  witch "  (little  baby)  they  were  all  like 
that,  and  that  their  parents  were  of  the 
same  color,  but  never  a  white  or  "waugee" 
man  or  woman  among  them ;  that  they  were 
looked  upon  as  a  distinct  and  superior  caste 
of  Indians,  and  enjoyed  certain  privileges 
with  the  tribe;  that  they  superstitiously 
avoided  white  men,  of  whom  they  had  the 
greatest  fear,  and  that  they  were  protected 
in  this  by  the  other  Indians;  that  it  was 
marvelous  and  almost  beyond  belief  that 
Pomfrey  had  been  able  to  see  one,  for  no 
other  white  man  had,  or  was  even  aware  of 
their  existence. 

How  much  of  this  he  actually  understood, 
how  much  of  it  was  lying  and  due  to  Jim's 
belief  that  he  wished  to  abduct  the  fair 
stranger,  Pomfrey  was  unable  to  determine. 
There  was  enough,  however,  to  excite  his 
curiosity  strongly  and  occupy  his  mind  to 
the  exclusion  of  his  books  —  save  one. 
Among  his  smaller  volumes  he  had  found 
a  travel  book  of  the  "Chinook  Jargon," 
with  a  lexicon  of  many  of  the  words  com- 
monly used  by  the  Northern  Pacific  tribes. 
An  hour  or  two's  trial  with  the  astonished 
Jim  gave  him  an  increased  vocabulary  and 
a  new  occupation.  Each  day  the  incon- 


MERMAID    OF   LIGHTHOUSE   POINT      121 

gruous  pair  took  a  lesson  from  the  lexicon. 
In  a  week  Pomfrey  felt  lie  would  be  able 
to  accost  the  mysterious  stranger.  But  he 
did  not  again  surprise  her  in  any  of  his 
rambles,  or  even  in  a  later  visit  to  the 
sweat-house.  He  had  learned  from  Jim  that 
the  house  was  only  used  by  the  "bucks," 
or  males,  and  that  her  appearance  there 
had  been  accidental.  He  recalled  that  he 
had  had  the  impression  that  she  had  been 
stealthily  following  him,  and  the  recollec- 
tion gave  him  a  pleasure  he  could  not  ac- 
count for.  But  an  incident  presently  oc- 
curred which  gave  him  a  new  idea  of  her 
relations  towards  him. 

The  difficulty  of  making  Jim  understand 
had  hitherto  prevented  Pomfrey  from  in- 
trusting him  with  the  care  of  the  lantern; 
but  with  the  aid  of  the  lexicon  he  had  been 
able  to  make  him  comprehend  its  working, 
and  under  Pomfrey's  personal  guidance  the 
Indian  had  once  or  twice  lit  the  lamp  and 
set  its  machinery  in  motion.  It  remained 
for  him  only  to  test  Jim's  unaided  capa- 
city, in  case  of  his  own  absence  or  illness. 
It  happened  to  be  a  warm,  beautiful  sunset, 
when  the  afternoon  fog  had  for  once  de- 
layed its  invasion  of  the  shore-line,  that  he 


122      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

left  the  lighthouse  to  Jim's  undivided  care, 
and  reclining  on  a  sand-dune  still  warm 
from  the  sun,  lazily  watched  the  result  of 
Jim's  first  essay.  As  the  twilight  deep- 
ened, and  the  first  flash  of  the  lantern 
strove  with  the  dying  glories  of  the  sun, 
Pomfrey  presently  became  aware  that  he 
was  not  the  only  watcher.  A  little  gray 
figure  creeping  on  all  fours  suddenly  glided 
out  of  the  shadow  of  another  sand-dune  and 
then  halted,  falling  back  on  its  knees,  gaz- 
ing fixedly  at  the  growing  light.  It  was 
the  woman  he  had  seen.  She  was  not  a 
dozen  yards  away,  and  in  her  eagerness  and 
utter  absorption  in  the  light  had  evidently 
overlooked  him.  He  could  see  her  face 
distinctly,  her  lips  parted  half  in  wonder, 
half  with  the  breathless  absorption  of  a 
devotee.  A  faint  sense  of  disappointment 
came  over  him.  It  was  not  him  she  was 
watching,  but  the  light!  As  it  swelled  out 
over  the  darkening  gray  sand  she  turned  as 
if  to  watch  its  effect  around  her,  and  caught 
sight  of  Pomfrey.  With  a  little  startled 
cry  —  the  first  she  had  uttered  —  she  darted 
away.  He  did  not  follow.  A  moment  be- 
fore, when  he  first  saw  her,  an  Indian  salu- 
tation which  he  had  learned  from  Jim  had 


MERMAID    OF  LiaHT  HOUSE  POINT      123 

risen  to  his  lips,  but  in  the  odd  feeling 
which  her  fascination  of  the  light  had 
caused  him  he  had  not  spoken.  He  watched 
her  bent  figure  scuttling  away  like  some 
frightened  animal,  with  a  critical  conscious- 
ness that  she  was  really  scarce  human,  and 
went  back  to  the  lighthouse.  He  would 
not  run  after  her  again !  Yet  that  evening 
he  continued  to  think  of  her,  and  recalled 
her  voice,  which  struck  him  now  as  having 
been  at  once  melodious  and  childlike,  and 
wished  he  had  at  least  spoken,  and  perhaps 
elicited  a  reply. 

He  did  not,  however,  haunt  the  sweat- 
house  near  the  river  again.  Yet  he  still 
continued  his  lessons  with  Jim,  and  in  this 
way,  perhaps,  although  quite  unpremedi- 
tatedly,  enlisted  a  humble  ally.  A  week 
passed  in  which  he  had  not  alluded  to  her, 
when  one  morning,  as  he  was  returning 
from  a  row,  Jim  met  him  mysteriously  on 
the  beach. 

"S'pose  him  come  slow,  slow,"  said  Jim 
gravely,  airing  his  newly  acquired  English ; 
"make  no  noise  —  plenty  catchee  Indian 
maiden."  The  last  epithet  was  the  polite 
lexicon  equivalent  of  squaw. 

Pomfrey,   not    entirely   satisfied    in  his 


124      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

mind,  nevertheless  softly  followed  the  noise- 
lessly gliding  Jim  to  the  lighthouse.  Here 
Jim  cautiously  opened  the  door,  motioning 
Pomfrey  to  enter. 

The  base  of  the  tower  was  composed  of 
two  living  rooms,  a  storeroom  and  oil-tank. 
As  Pomfrey  entered,  Jim  closed  the  door 
softly  behind  him.  The  abrupt  transition 
from  the  glare  of  the  sands  and  sun  to  the 
semi-darkness  of  the  storeroom  at  first  pre- 
vented him  from  seeing  anything,  but  he 
was  instantly  distracted  by  a  scurrying  flut- 
ter and  wild  beating  of  the  walls,  as  of  a 
caged  bird.  In  another  moment  he  could 
make  out  the  fair  stranger,  quivering  with 
excitement,  passionately  dashing  at  the 
barred  window,  the  walls,  the  locked  door, 
and  circling  around  the  room  in  her  desper- 
ate attempt  to  find  an  egress,  like  a  captured 
seagull.  Amazed,  mystified,  indignant  with 
Jim,  himself,  and  even  his  unfortunate  cap- 
tive, Pomfrey  called  to  her  in  Chinook  to 
stop,  and  going  to  the  door,  flung  it  wide 
open.  She  darted  by  him,  raising  her  soft 
blue  eyes  for  an  instant  in  a  swift,  sidelong 
glance  of  half  appeal,  half -frightened  admi- 
ration, and  rushed  out  into  the  open.  But 
here,  to  his  surprise,  she  did  not  run  away. 


MERMAID   OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT     125 

On  the  contrary,  she  drew  herself  up  with 
a  dignity  that  seemed  to  increase  her  height, 
and  walked  majestically  towards  Jim,  who 
at  her  unexpected  exit  had  suddenly  thrown 
himself  upon  the  sand,  in  utterly  abject 
terror  and  supplication.  She  approached 
him  slowly,  with  one  small  hand  uplifted  in 
a  menacing  gesture.  The  man  writhed  and 
squirmed  before  her.  Then  she  turned, 
caught  sight  of  Pomfrey  standing  in  the 
doorway,  and  walked  quietly  away. 
Amazed,  yet  gratified  with  this  new  asser- 
tion of  herself,  Pomfrey  respectfully,  but 
alas!  incautiously,  called  after  her.  In  an 
instant,  at  the  sound  of  his  voice,  she 
dropped  again  into  her  slouching  Indian 
trot  and  glided  away  over  the  sandhills. 

Pomfrey  did  not  add  any  reproof  of  his 
own  to  the  discomfiture  of  his  Indian  re- 
tainer. Neither  did  he  attempt  to  inquire 
the  secret  of  this  savage  girl's  power  over 
him.  It  was  evident  he  had  spoken  truly 
when  he  told  his  master  that  she  was  of  a 
superior  caste.  Pomfrey  recalled  her  erect 
and  indignant  figure  standing  over  the  pro- 
strate Jim,  and  was  again  perplexed  and 
disappointed  at  her  sudden  lapse  into  the 
timid  savage  at  the  sound  of  his  voice. 


126      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

Would  not  this  well-meant  but  miserable 
trick  of  Jim's  have  the  effect  of  increas- 
ing her  unreasoning  animal-like  distrust  of 
him?  A  few  days  later  brought  an  unex- 
pected answer  to  his  question. 

It  was  the  hottest  hour  of  the  day.  He 
had  been  fishing  off  the  reef  of  rocks  where 
he  had  first  seen  her,  and  had  taken  in  his 
line  and  was  leisurely  pulling  for  the  light- 
house. Suddenly  a  little  musical  cry  not 
unlike  a  bird's  struck  his  ear.  He  lay  on 
his  oars  and  listened.  It  was  repeated; 
but  this  time  it  was  unmistakably  recogni- 
zable as  the  voice  of  the  Indian  girl,  al- 
though he  had  heard  it  but  once.  He 
turned  eagerly  to  the  rock,  but  it  was 
empty;  he  pulled  around  it,  but  saw  no- 
thing. He  looked  towards  the  shore,  and 
swung  his  boat  in  that  direction,  when 
again  the  cry  was  repeated  with  the  faintest 
quaver  of  a  laugh,  apparently  on  the  level 
of  the  sea  before  him.  For  the  first  time 
he  looked  down,  and  there  on  the  crest  of 
a  wave  not  a  dozen  yards  ahead,  danced 
the  yellow  hair  and  laughing  eyes  of  the 
girl.  The  frightened  gravity  of  her  look 
was  gone,  lost  in  the  flash  of  her  white  teeth 
and  quivering  dimples  as  her  dripping  face 


127 

rose  above  the  sea.  When  their  eyes  met 
she  dived  again,  but  quickly  reappeared  on 
the  other  bow,  swimming  with  lazy,  easy 
strokes,  her  smiling  head  thrown  back  over 
her  white  shoulder,  as  if  luring  him  to  a 
race.  If  her  smile  was  a  revelation  to  him, 
still  more  so  was  this  first  touch  of  feminine 
coquetry  in  her  attitude.  He  pulled  eagerly 
towards  her;  with  a  few  long  overhand 
strokes  she  kept  her  distance,  or,  if  he  ap- 
proached too  near,  she  dived  like  a  loon, 
coming  up  astern  of  him  with  the  same 
childlike,  mocking  cry.  In  vain  he  pursued 
her,  calling  her  to  stop  in  her  own  tongue, 
and  laughingly  protested ;  she  easily  avoided 
his  boat  at  every  turn.  Suddenly,  when 
they  were  nearly  abreast  of  the  river  estu- 
ary, she  rose  in  the  water,  and,  waving  her 
little  hands  with  a  gesture  of  farewell, 
turned,  and  curving  her  back  like  a  dolphin, 
leaped  into  the  surging  swell  of  the  estuary 
bar  and  was  lost  in  its  foam.  It  would 
have  been  madness  for  him  to  have  at- 
tempted to  follow  in  his  boat,  and  he  saw 
that  she  knew  it.  He  waited  until  her 
yellow  crest  appeared  in  the  smoother  water 
of  the  river,  and  then  rowed  back.  In  his 
excitement  and  preoccupation  he  had  quite 


128      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

forgotten  his  long  exposure  to  the  sun  dur- 
ing his  active  exercise,  and  that  he  was 
poorly  equipped  for  the  cold  sea-fog  which 
the  heat  had  brought  in  earlier,  and  which 
now  was  quietly  obliterating  sea  and  shore. 
This  made  his  progress  slower  and  more 
difficult,  and  by  the  time  he  had  reached 
the  lighthouse  he  was  chilled  to  the  bone. 

The  next  morning  he  woke  with  a  dull 
headache  and  great  weariness,  and  it  was 
with  considerable  difficulty  that  he  could 
attend  to  his  duties.  At  nightfall,  feeling 
worse,  he  determined  to  transfer  the  care 
of  the  light  to  Jim,  but  was  amazed  to  find 
that  he  had  disappeared,  and  what  was 
more  ominous,  a  bottle  of  spirits  which 
Pomfrey  had  taken  from  his  locker  the 
night  before  had  disappeared  too.  Like  all 
Indians,  Jim's  rudimentary  knowledge  of 
civilization  included  "fire-water;"  he  evi- 
dently had  been  tempted,  had  fallen,  and 
was  too  ashamed  or  too  drunk  to  face  his 
master.  Pomfrey,  however,  managed  to 
get  the  light  in  order  and  working,  and 
then,  he  scarcely  knew  how,  betook  him- 
self to  bed  in  a  state  of  high  fever.  He 
turned  from  side  to  side  racked  by  pain, 
with  burning  lips  and  pulses.  Strange  fan- 


MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      129 

cies  beset  him;  he  had  noticed  when  he  lit 
his  light  that  a  strange  sail  was  looming  off 
the  estuary  —  a  place  where  no  sail  had 
ever  been  seen  or  should  be  —  and  was  re- 
lieved that  the  lighting  of  the  tower  might 
show  the  reckless  or  ignorant  mariner  his 
real  bearings  for  the  "Gate."  At  times  he 
had  heard  voices  above  the  familiar  song 
of  the  surf,  and  tried  to  rise  from  his  bed, 
but  could  not.  Sometimes  these  voices 
were  strange,  outlandish,  dissonant,  in  his 
own  language,  yet  only  partly  intelligible; 
but  through  them  always  rang  a  single 
voice,  musical,  familiar,  yet  of  a  tongue 
not  his  own  —  hers !  And  then,  out  of  his 
delirium  —  for  such  it  proved  afterwards  to 
be  —  came  a  strange  vision.  He  thought 
that  he  had  just  lit  the  light  when,  from 
some  strange  and  unaccountable  reason,  it 
suddenly  became  dim  and  defied  all  his 
efforts  to  revive  it.  To  add  to  his  discom- 
fiture, he  could  see  quite  plainly  through 
the  lantern  a  strange-looking  vessel  stand- 
ing in  from  the  sea.  She  was  so  clearly 
out  of  her  course  for  the  Gate  that  he  knew 
she  had  not  seen  the  light,  and  his  limbs 
trembled  with  shame  and  terror  as  he  tried 
in  vain  to  rekindle  the  dying  light.  Yet  to 


130      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

his  surprise  the  strange  ship  kept  steadily 
on,  passing  the  dangerous  reef  of  rocks, 
until  she  was  actually  in  the  waters  of  the 
bay.  But  stranger  than  all,  swimming  be- 
neath her  bows  was  the  golden  head  and 
laughing  face  of  the  Indian  girl,  even  as  he 
had  seen  it  the  day  before.  A  strange  re- 
vulsion of  feeling  overtook  him.  Believing 
that  she  was  luring  the  ship  to  its  destruc- 
tion, he  ran  out  on  the  beach  and  strove  to 
hail  the  vessel  and  warn  it  of  its  impending 
doom.  But  he  could  not  speak  —  no  sound 
came  from  his  lips.  And  now  his  attention 
was  absorbed  by  the  ship  itself.  High- 
bowed  and  pooped,  and  curved  like  the 
crescent  moon,  it  was  the  strangest  craft 
that  he  had  ever  seen.  Even  as  he  gazed  it 
glided  on  nearer  and  nearer,  and  at  last 
beached  itself  noiselessly  on  the  sands  before 
his  own  feet.  A  score  of  figures  as  bizarre 
and  outlandish  as  the  ship  itself  now 
thronged  its  high  forecastle  —  really  a  cas- 
tle in  shape  and  warlike  purpose  —  and 
leaped  from  its  ports.  The  common  sea- 
men were  nearly  naked  to  the  waist;  the 
officers  looked  more  like  soldiers  than  sail- 
ors. What  struck  him  more  strangely  was 
that  they  were  one  and  all  seemingly  un- 


MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      131 

conscious  of  the  existence  of  the  lighthouse, 
sauntering  up  and  down  carelessly,  as  if  on 
some  uninhabited  strand,  and  even  talking 
—  so  far  as  he  could  understand  their  old 
bookish  dialect  —  as  if  in  some  hitherto  un- 
discovered land.  Their  ignorance  of  the 
geography  of  the  whole  coast,  and  even  of 
the  sea  from  which  they  came,  actually 
aroused  his  critical  indignation ;  their  coarse 
and  stupid  allusions  to  the  fair  Indian 
swimmer  as  the  "mermaid"  that  they  had 
seen  upon  their  bow  made  him  more  furious 
still.  Yet  he  was  helpless  to  express  his 
contemptuous  anger,  or  even  make  them 
conscious  of  his  presence.  Then  an  inter- 
val of  incoherency  and  utter  blankness  fol- 
lowed. When  he  again  took  up  the  thread 
of  his  fancy  the  ship  seemed  to  be  lying  on 
her  beam  ends  on  the  sand;  the  strange 
arrangement  of  her  upper  deck  and  top- 
hamper,  more  like  a  dwelling  than  any  ship 
he  had  ever  seen,  was  fully  exposed  to  view, 
while  the  seamen  seemed  to  be  at  work  with 
the  rudest  contrivances,  calking  and  scrap- 
ing her  barnacled  sides.  He  saw  that 
phantom  crew,  when  not  working,  at  was- 
sail and  festivity;  heard  the  shouts  of 
drunken  roisterers;  saw  the  placing  of  a 


132      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

guard  around  some  of  the  most  uncontrol- 
lable, and  later  detected  the  stealthy  escape 
of  half  a  dozen  sailors  inland,  amidst  the 
fruitless  volley  fired  upon  them  from  obso- 
lete blunderbusses.  Then  his  strange  vision 
transported  him  inland,  where  he  saw  these 
seamen  following  some  Indian  women. 
Suddenly  one  of  them  turned  and  ran  fren- 
ziedly  towards  him  as  if  seeking  succor, 
closely  pursued  by  one  of  the  sailors. 
Pomfrey  strove  to  reach  her,  struggled  vio- 
lently with  the  fearful  apathy  that  seemed 
to  hold  his  limbs,  and  then,  as  she  uttered 
at  last  a  little  musical  cry,  burst  his  bonds 
and  —  awoke ! 

As  consciousness  slowly  struggled  back 
to  him,  he  could  see  the  bare  wooden-like 
walls  of  his  sleeping-room,  the  locker,  the 
one  window  bright  with  sunlight,  the  open 
door  of  the  tank-room,  and  the  little  stair- 
case to  the  tower.  There  was  a  strange 
smoky  and  herb-like  smell  in  the  room. 
He  made  an  effort  to  rise,  but  as  he  did  so 
a  small  sunburnt  hand  was  laid  gently  yet 
restrainingly  upon  his  shoulder,  and  he 
heard  the  same  musical  cry  as  before,  but 
this  time  modulated  to  a  girlish  laugh.  He 
raised  his  head  faintly.  Half  squatting, 


MERMAID   OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      133 

half  kneeling  by  his  bed  was  the  yellow- 
haired  stranger. 

With  the  recollection  of  his  vision  still 
perplexing  him,  he  said  in  a  weak  voice, 
"Who  are  you?" 

Her  blue  eyes  met  his  own  with  quick 
intelligence  and  no  trace  of  her  former 
timidity.  A  soft,  caressing  light  had  taken 
its  place.  Pointing  with  her  finger  to  her 
breast  in  a  childlike  gesture,  she  said,  "Me 
—  Olooya." 

"Olooya!"  He  remembered  suddenly 
that  Jim  had  always  used  that  word  in 
speaking  of  her,  but  until  then  he  had 
always  thought  it  was  some  Indian  term 
for  her  distinct  class. 

"Olooya,"  he  repeated.  Then,  with  dif- 
ficulty attempting  to  use  her  own  tongue, 
he  asked,  "When  did  you  come  here?" 

"Last  night,"  she  answered  in  the  same 
tongue.  "There  was  no  witch-fire  there," 
she  continued,  pointing  to  the  tower ;  "  when 
it  came  not,  Olooya  came!  Olooya  found 
white  chief  sick  and  alone.  WThite  chief 
could  not  get  up!  Olooya  lit  witch-fire  for 
him." 

"You? "  he  repeated  in  astonishment. 
"I  lit  it  my  self." 


134      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

She  looked  at  him  pityingly,  as  if  still 
recognizing  his  delirium,  and  shook  her 
head.  "White  chief  was  sick  —  how  can 
know?  Olooya  made  witch-fire." 

He  cast  a  hurried  glance  at  his  watch 
hanging  on  the  wall  beside  him.  It  had 
run  down,  although  he  had  wound  it  the 
last  thing  before  going  to  bed.  He  had 
evidently  been  lying  there  helpless  beyond 
the  twenty -four  hours ! 

He  groaned  and  turned  to  rise,  but  she 
gently  forced  him  down  again,  and  gave 
him  some  herbal  infusion,  in  which  he  re- 
cognized the  taste  of  the  Yerba  Buena  vine 
which  grew  by  the  river.  Then  she  made 
him  comprehend  in  her  own  tongue  that 
Jim  had  been  decoyed,  while  drunk,  aboard 
a  certain  schooner  lying  off  the  shore  at  a 
spot  where  she  had  seen  some  men  digging 
in  the  sands.  She  had  not  gone  there,  for 
she  was  afraid  of  the  bad  men,  and  a  slight 
return  of  her  former  terror  came  into  her 
changeful  eyes.  She  knew  how  to  light 
the  witch-light ;  she  reminded  him  she  had 
been  in  the  tower  before. 

"You  have  saved  my  light,  and  perhaps 
my  life,"  he  said  weakly,  taking  her  hand. 

Possibly  she  did  not  understand  him,  for 


MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      135 

her  only  answer  was  a  vague  smile.  But 
the  next  instant  she  started  up,  listening 
intently,  and  then  with  a  frightened  cry 
drew  away  her  hand  and  suddenly  dashed 
out  of  the  building.  In  the  midst  of  his 
amazement  the  door  was  darkened  by  a  fig- 
ure—  a  stranger  dressed  like  an  ordinary 
miner.  Pausing  a  moment  to  look  after 
the  flying  Olooya,  the  man  turned  and 
glanced  around  the  room,  and  then  with  a 
coarse,  familiar  smile  approached  Pomfrey. 

"Hope  I  ain't  disturbin'  ye,  but  I  al- 
lowed I  'd  just  be  neighborly  and  drop  in  — 
seem'  as  this  is  gov'nment  property,  and 
me  and  my  pardners,  as  American  citizens 
and  tax-payers,  helps  to  support  it.  We  're 
coastin'  from  Trinidad  down  here  and  pro- 
spectin'  along  the  beach  for  gold  in  the 
sand.  Ye  seem  to  hev  a  mighty  soft  berth 
of  it  here  —  nothing  to  do  —  and  lots  of 
purty  half-breeds  hangin'  round!  " 

The  man's  effrontery  was  too  much  for 
Pomfrey's  self-control,  weakened  by  illness. 
"It  is  government  property,"  he  answered 
hotly,  "and  you  have  no  more  right  to  in- 
trude upon  it  than  you  have  to  decoy  away 
my  servant,  a  government  employee,  during 
my  illness,  and  jeopardize  that  property." 


136      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

The  unexpectedness  of  this  attack,  and 
the  sudden  revelation  of  the  fact  of  Pom- 
frey's  illness  in  his  flushed  face  and  hollow 
voice  apparently  frightened  and  confused 
the  stranger.  He  stammered  a  surly  ex- 
cuse, backed  out  of  the  doorway,  and  disap- 
peared. An  hour  later  Jim  appeared, 
crestfallen,  remorseful,  and  extravagantly 
penitent.  Pomfrey  was  too  weak  for  re- 
proaches or  inquiry,  and  he  was  thinking 
only  of  Olooya. 

She  did  not  return.  His  recovery  in  that 
keen  air,  aided,  as  he  sometimes  thought, 
by  the  herbs  she  had  given  him,  was  almost 
as  rapid  as  his  illness.  The  miners  did  not 
again  intrude  upon  the  lighthouse  nor  trou- 
ble his  seclusion.  When  he  was  able  to 
sun  himself  on  the  sands,  he  could  see  them 
in  the  distance  at  work  on  the  beach.  He 
reflected  that  she  would  not  come  back  while 
they  were  there,  and  was  reconciled.  But 
one  morning  Jim  appeared,  awkward  and 
embarrassed,  leading  another  Indian,  whom 
he  introduced  as  Olooya's  brother.  Pom- 
frey's  suspicions  were  aroused.  Except 
that  the  stranger  had  something  of  the  girl's 
superiority  of  manner,  there  was  no  likeness 
whatever  to  his  fair-haired  acquaintance. 


MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      137 

But  a  fury  of  indignation  was  added  to  his 
suspicions  when  he  learned  the  amazing 
purport  of  their  visit.  It  was  nothing  less 
than  an  offer  from  the  alleged  brother  to 
sell  his  sister  to  Pomfrey  for  forty  dollars 
and  a  jug  of  whiskey!  Unfortunately, 
Pomfrey 's  temper  once  more  got  the  better 
of  his  judgment.  With  a  scathing  exposi- 
tion of  the  laws  under  which  the  Indian 
and  white  man  equally  lived,  and  the  legal 
punishment  of  kidnaping,  he  swept  what 
he  believed  was  the  impostor  from  his  pre- 
sence. He  was  scarcely  alone  again  before 
he  remembered  that  his  imprudence  might 
affect  the  girl's  future  access  to  him,  but  it 
was  too  late  now. 

Still  he  clung  to  the  belief  that  he  should 
see  her  when  the  prospectors  had  departed, 
and  he  hailed  with  delight  the  breaking  up 
of  the  camp  near  the  "sweat-house"  and 
the  disappearance  of  the  schooner.  It 
seemed  that  their  gold-seeking  was  unsuc- 
cessful; but  Pomfrey  was  struck,  on  visit- 
ing the  locality,  to  find  that  in  their  exca- 
vations in  the  sand  at  the  estuary  they  had 
uncovered  the  decaying  timbers  of  a  ship's 
small  boat  of  some  ancient  and  obsolete 
construction.  This  made  him  think  of  his 


138      MERMAID    OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT 

strange  dream,  with  a  vague  sense  of  warn- 
ing which-  he  could  not  shake  off,  and  on 
his  return  to  the  lighthouse  he  took  from 
his  shelves  a  copy  of  the  old  voyages  to  see 
how  far  his  fancy  had  been  affected  by  his 
reading.  In  the  account  of  Drake's  visit 
to  the  coast  he  found  a  footnote  which  he 
had  overlooked  before,  and  which  ran  as 
follows:  "The  Admiral  seems  to  have 
lost  several  of  his  crew  by  desertion,  who 
were  supposed  to  have  perished  miserably 
by  starvation  in  the  inhospitable  interior 
or  by  the  hands  of  savages.  But  later  voy- 
agers have  suggested  that  the  deserters 
married  Indian  wives,  and  there  is  a  legend 
that  a  hundred  years  later  a  singular  race 
of  half-breeds,  bearing  unmistakable  Anglo- 
Saxon  characteristics,  was  found  in  that 
locality."  Pomfrey  fell  into  a  reverie  of 
strange  hypotheses  and  fancies.  He  re- 
solved that,  when  he  again  saw  Olooya,  he 
would  question  her ;  her  terror  of  these  men 
might  be  simply  racial  or  some  hereditary 
transmission. 

But  his  intention  was  never  fulfilled. 
For  when  days  and  weeks  had  elapsed,  and 
he  had  vainly  haunted  the  river  estuary  and 
the  rocky  reef  before  the  lighthouse  without 


MERMAID   OF  LIGHTHOUSE  POINT      139 

a  sign  of  her,  he  overcame  his  pride  suffi- 
ciently to  question  Jim.  The  man  looked 
at  him  with  dull  astonishment. 

"Olooya  gone,"  he  said. 

"Gone!— where?" 

The  Indian  made  a  gesture  to  seaward 
which  seemed  to  encompass  the  whole  Pa- 
cific. 

"How?  With  whom?"  repeated  his 
angry  yet  half -frightened  master. 

"  With  white  man  in  ship.  You  say  you 
no  want  Olooya  —  forty  dollars  too  much. 
White  man  give  fifty  dollars  —  takee  Olooya 
all  same." 


UNDER    THE    EAVES 

THE  assistant  editor  of  the  San  Francisco 
"Daily  Informer"  was  going  home.  So 
much  of  his  time  was  spent  in  the  office  of 
the  "Informer"  that  no  one  ever  cared  to 
know  where  he  passed  those  six  hours  of 
sleep  which  presumably  suggested  a  domi- 
cile. His  business  appointments  outside 
the  office  were  generally  kept  at  the  restau- 
rant where  he  breakfasted  and  dined,  or  of 
evenings  in  the  lobbies  of  theatres  or  the 
anterooms  of  public  meetings.  Yet  he  had 
a  home  and  an  interval  of  seclusion  of  which 
he  was  jealously  mindful,  and  it  was  to  this 
he  was  going  to-night  at  his  usual  hour. 

His  room  was  iu  a  new  building  on  one 
of  the  larger  and  busier  thoroughfares. 
The  lower  floor  was  occupied  by  a  bank, 
but  as  it  was  closed  before  he  came  home, 
and  not  yet  opened  when  he  left,  it  did  not 
disturb  his  domestic  sensibilities.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  next  floor,  which  was 
devoted  to  stockbrokers'  and  companies' 
offices,  and  was  equally  tomb-like  and  silent 


UNDER   THE   EAVES  141 

when  he  passed;  the  floor  above  that  was 
a  desert  of  empty  rooms,  which  echoed  to 
his  footsteps  night  and  morning,  with  here 
and  there  an  oasis  in  the  green  sign  of  a 
mining  secretary's  office,  with,  however, 
the  desolating  announcement  that  it  would 
only  be  "open  for  transfers  from  two  to 
four  on  Saturdays."  The  top  floor  had 
been  frankly  abandoned  in  an  unfinished 
state  by  the  builder,  whose  ambition  had 
"o'erleaped  itself  "  in  that  sanguine  era  of 
the  city's  growth.  There  was  a  smell  of 
plaster  and  the  first  coat  of  paint  about  it 
still,  but  the  whole  front  of  the  building 
was  occupied  by  a  long  room  with  odd 
"bull's-eye"  windows  looking  out  through 
the  heavy  ornamentations  of  the  cornice 
over  the  adjacent  roofs. 

It  had  been  originally  intended  for  a 
club-room,  but  after  the  ill  fortune  which 
attended  the  letting  of  the  floor  below,  and 
possibly  because  the  earthquake-fearing  San 
Franciscans  had  their  doubts  of  successful 
hilarity  at  the  top  of  so  tall  a  building,  it 
remained  unfinished,  with  the  two  smaller 
rooms  at  its  side.  Its  incomplete  and 
lonely  grandeur  had  once  struck  the  editor 
during  a  visit  of  inspection,  and  the  land- 


142  UNDER   THE  EAVES 

lord,  whom  he  knew,  had  offered  to  make 
it  habitable  for  him  at  a  nominal  rent.  It 
had  a  lavatory  with  a  marble  basin  and  a 
tap  of  cold  water.  The  offer  was  a  novel 
one,  but  he  accepted  it,  and  fitted  up  the 
apartment  with  some  cheap  second-hand 
furniture,  quite  inconsistent  with  the  carved 
mantels  and  decorations,  and  made  a  fair 
sitting-room  and  bedroom  of  it.  Here,  on 
a  Sunday,  when  its  stillness  was  intensified, 
and  even  a  passing  footstep  on  the  pave- 
ment fifty  feet  below  was  quite  startling,  he 
would  sit  and  work  by  one  of  the  quaint 
open  windows.  In  the  rainy  season,  through 
the  filmed  panes  he  sometimes  caught  a 
glimpse  of  the  distant,  white-capped  bay, 
but  never  of  the  street  below  him. 

The  lights  were  out,  but,  groping  his  way 
up  to  the  first  landing,  he  took  from  a  cup- 
boarded  niche  in  the  wall  his  candlestick  and 
matches  and  continued  the  ascent  to  his 
room.  The  humble  candlelight  flickered  on 
the  ostentatious  gold  letters  displayed  on  the 
ground-glass  doors  of  opulent  companies 
which  he  knew  were  famous,  and  rooms 
where  millionaires  met  in  secret  conclave, 
but  the  contrast  awakened  only  his  sense  of 
humor.  Yet  he  was  always  relieved  after 


UNDER   THE  EAVES  143 

he  had  reached  his  own  floor.  Possibly  its 
incompleteness  and  inchoate  condition  made 
it  seem  less  lonely  than  the  desolation  of  the 
finished  and  furnished  rooms  below,  and  it 
was  only  this  recollection  of  past  human 
occupancy  that  was  depressing. 

He  opened  his  door,  lit  the  solitary  gas 
jet  that  only  half  illuminated  the  long  room, 
and,  it  being  already  past  midnight,  began 
to  undress  himself.  This  process  presently 
brought  him  to  that  corner  of  his  room 
where  his  bed  stood,  when  he  suddenly 
stopped,  and  his  sleepy  yawn  changed  to 
a  gape  of  surprise.  For,  lying  in  the  bed, 
its  head  upon  the  pillow,  and  its  rigid  arms 
accurately  stretched  down  over  the  turned - 
back  sheet,  was  a  child's  doll!  It  was  a 
small  doll  —  a  banged  and  battered  doll, 
that  had  seen  service,  but  it  had  evidently 
been  "tucked  in  "  with  maternal  tenderness, 
and  lay  there  with  its  staring  eyes  turned 
to  the  ceiling,  the  very  genius  of  insomnia! 

His  first  start  of  surprise  was  followed  by 
a  natural  resentment  of  what  might  have 
been  an  impertinent  intrusion  on  his  privacy 
by  some  practical-joking  adult,  for  he  knew 
there  was  no  child  in  the  house. 

His  room  was  kept  in  order  by  the  wife 


144  UNDER   THE  EAVES 

of  the  night  watchman  employed  by  the 
bank,  and  no  one  else  had  a  right  of  access 
to  it.  But  the  woman  might  have  brought 
a  child  there  and  not  noticed  its  disposal  of 
its  plaything.  He  smiled.  It  might  have 
been  worse!  It  might  have  been  a  real 
baby! 

The  idea  tickled  him  with  a  promise  of 
future  "copy"  —  of  a  story  with  farcical 
complications,  or  even  a  dramatic  ending, 
in  which  the  baby,  adopted  by  him,  should 
turn  out  to  be  somebody's  stolen  offspring. 
He  lifted  the  little  image  that  had  sug- 
gested these  fancies,  carefully  laid  it  on  his 
table,  went  to  bed,  and  presently  forgot  it 
all  in  slumber. 

In  the  morning  his  good-humor  and  in- 
terest in  it  revived  to  the  extent  of  writing 
on  a  slip  of  paper,  "Good-morning!  Thank 
you  —  I've  slept  very  well,"  putting  the 
slip  in  the  doll's  jointed  arms,  and  leaving 
it  in  a  sitting  posture  outside  his  door  when 
he  left  his  room.  When  he  returned  late 
at  night  it  was  gone. 

But  it  so  chanced  that,  a  few  days  later, 
owing  to  press  of  work  on  the  "Informer," 
he  was  obliged  to  forego  his  usual  Sunday 
holiday  out  of  town,  and  that  morning 


UNDER   THE  EAVES  145 

found  him,  while  the  bells  were  ringing  for 
church,  in  his  room  with  a  pile  of  manu- 
script and  proof  before  him.  For  these 
were  troublous  days  in  San  Francisco;  the 
great  Vigilance  Committee  of  '56  was  in 
session,  and  the  offices  of  the  daily  papers 
were  thronged  with  eager  seekers  of  news. 
Such  affairs,  indeed,  were  not  in  the  func- 
tions of  the  assistant  editor,  nor  exactly  to 
his  taste ;  he  was  neither  a  partisan  of  the 
so-called  Law  and  Order  Party,  nor  yet  an 
enthusiastic  admirer  of  the  citizen  Revolu- 
tionists known  as  the  Vigilance  Committee, 
both  extremes  being  incompatible  with  his 
habits  of  thought.  Consequently  he  was 
not  displeased  at  this  opportunity  of  doing 
his  work  away  from  the  office  and  the 
"heady  talk"  of  controversy. 

He  worked  on  until  the  bells  ceased  and 
a  more  than  Sabbath  stillness  fell  upon  the 
streets.  So  quiet  was  it  that  once  or  twice 
the  conversation  of  passing  pedestrians 
floated  up  and  into  his  window,  as  of  voices 
at  his  elbow. 

Presently  he  heard  the  sound  of  a  child's 
voice  singing  in  subdued  tone,  as  if  fearful 
of  being  overheard.  This  time  he  laid  aside 
his  pen  —  it  certainly  was  no  delusion! 


146  UNDER   THE  EAVES 

The  sound  did  not  come  from  the  open  win- 
dow, but  from  some  space  on  a  level  with 
his  room.  Yet  there  was  no  contiguous 
building  as  high. 

He  rose  and  tried  to  open  his  door  softly, 
but  it  creaked,  and  the  singing  instantly 
ceased.  There  was  nothing  before  him  but 
the  bare,  empty  hall,  with  its  lathed  and 
plastered  partitions,  and  the  two  smaller 
rooms,  unfinished  like  his  own,  on  either 
side  of  him.  Their  doors  were  shut;  the 
one  at  his  right  hand  was  locked,  the  other 
yielded  to  his  touch. 

For  the  first  moment  he  saw  only  the 
bare  walls  of  the  apparently  empty  room. 
But  a  second  glance  showed  him  two  chil- 
dren —  a  boy  of  seven  and  a  girl  of  five  — 
sitting  on  the  floor,  which  was  further  lit- 
tered by  a  mattress,  pillow,  and  blanket. 
There  was  a  cheap  tray  on  one  of  the  trunks 
containing  two  soiled  plates  and  cups  and 
fragments  of  a  meal.  But  there  was  nei- 
ther a  chair  nor  table  nor  any  other  article 
of  furniture  in  the  room.  Yet  he  was  struck 
by  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of  this  poverty  of 
surrounding,  the  children  were  decently 
dressed,  and  the  few  scattered  pieces  of  lug- 
gage in  quality  bespoke  a  superior  condition. 


UNDER    THE   EAVES  147 

The  children  met  his  astonished  stare 
with  an  equal  wonder  and,  he  fancied,  some 
little  fright.  The  boy's  lips  trembled  a 
little  as  he  said  apologetically  — 

"I  told  Jinny  not  to  sing.  But  she  did 
n't  make  much  noise." 

"Mamma  said  I  could  play  with  my 
dolly.  But  I  fordot  and  singed,"  said  the 
little  girl  penitently. 

"Where's  your  mamma?"  asked  the 
young  man.  The  fancy  of  their  being  near 
relatives  of  the  night  watchman  had  van- 
ished at  the  sound  of  their  voices. 

"Dorn  out,"  said  the  girl. 

"When  did  she  go  out?" 

"Last  night." 

"Were  you  all  alone  here  last  night?" 

"Yes!" 

Perhaps  they  saw  the  look  of  indignation 
and  pity  in  the  editor's  face,  for  the  boy 
said  quickly  — 

"She  don't  go  out  every  night;  last  night 
she  went  to  "  — 

He  stopped  suddenly,  and  both  children 
looked  at  each  other  with  a  half  laugh  and 
half  cry,  and  then  repeated  in  hopeless 
unison,  "She  's  dorn  out." 

"  When  is  she  coming  back  again  ?  " 


148  UNDER   THE  EAVES 

"To-night.  But  we  won't  make  any 
more  noise." 

"Who  brings  you  your  food?"  continued 
the  editor,  looking  at  the  tray. 

"Woberts." 

Evidently  Roberts,  the  night  watchman! 
The  editor  felt  relieved;  here  was  a  clue  to 
some  explanation.  He  instantly  sat  down 
on  the  floor  between  them. 

"So  that  was  the  dolly  that  slept  in  my 
bed,"  he  said  gayly,  taking  it  up. 

God  gives  helplessness  a  wonderful  intui- 
tion of  its  friends.  The  children  looked  up 
at  the  face  of  their  grown-up  companion, 
giggled,  and  then  burst  into  a  shrill  fit  of 
laughter.  He  felt  that  it  was  the  first  one 
they  had  really  indulged  in  for  many  days. 
Nevertheless  he  said,  "Hush!"  confiden- 
tially; why  he  scarcely  knew,  except  to  in- 
timate to  them  that  he  had  taken  in  their 
situation  thoroughly.  "Make  no  noise,"  he 
added  softly,  "and  come  into  my  big  room." 

They  hung  back,  however,  with  fright- 
ened yet  longing  eyes.  "Mamma  said  we 
mussent  do  out  of  this  room,"  said  the  girl. 

"Not  alone,"  responded  the  editor 
quickly,  "but  with  me,  you  know;  that's 
different." 


UNDER    THE   EAVES  149 

The  logic  sufficed  them,  poor  as  it  was. 
Their  hands  slid  quite  naturally  into  his. 
But  at  the  door  he  stopped,  and  motioning 
to  the  locked  door  of  the  other  room, 
asked :  — 

"And  is  that  mamma's  room,  too?" 

Their  little  hands  slipped  from  his  and 
they  were  silent.  Presently  the  boy,  as  if 
acted  upon  by  some  occult  influence  of  the 
girl,  said  in  a  half  whisper,  "Yes." 

The  editor  did  not  question  further,  but 
led  them  into  his  room.  Here  they  lost  the 
slight  restraint  they  had  shown,  and  began, 
child  fashion,  to  become  questioners  them- 
selves. 

In  a  few  moments  they  were  in  possession 
of  his  name,  his  business,  the  kind  of  res- 
taurant he  frequented,  where  he  went  when 
he  left  his  room  all  day,  the  meaning  of 
those  funny  slips  of  paper,  and  the  writ- 
ten manuscripts,  and  why  he  was  so  quiet. 
But  any  attempt  of  his  to  retaliate  by 
counter  questions  was  met  by  a  sudden  re- 
serve so  unchildlike  and  painful  to  him  — 
as  it  was  evidently  to  themselves  —  that  he 
desisted,  wisely  postponing  his  inquiries 
until  he  could  meet  Roberts. 

He  was  glad  when  they  fell  to  playing 


150  UNDER    THE   EAVES 

games  with  each  other  quite  naturally,  yet 
not  entirely  forgetting  his  propinquity,  as 
their  occasional  furtive  glances  at  his  move- 
ments showed  him.  He,  too,  became  pre- 
sently absorbed  in  his  work,  until  it  was 
finished  and  it  was  time  for  him  to  take  it 
to  the  office  of  the  "Informer."  The  wild 
idea  seized  him  of  also  taking  the  children 
afterwards  for  a  holiday  to  the  Mission 
Dolores,  but  he  prudently  remembered  that 
even  this  negligent  mother  of  theirs  might 
have  some  rights  over  her  offspring  that  he 
was  bound  to  respect. 

He  took  leave  of  them  gayly,  suggesting 
that  the  doll  be  replaced  in  his  bed  while 
he  was  away,  and  even  assisted  in  "tucking 
it  up."  But  during  the  afternoon  the  recol- 
lection of  these  lonely  playfellows  in  the 
deserted  house  obtruded  itself  upon  his  work 
and  the  talk  of  his  companions.  Sunday 
night  was  his  busiest  night,  and  he  could 
not,  therefore,  hope  to  get  away  in  time  to 
assure  himself  of  their  mother's  return. 

It  was  nearly  two  in  the  morning  when 
he  returned  to  his  room.  He  paused  for 
a  moment  on  the  threshold  to  listen  for  any 
sound  from  the  adjoining  room.  But  all 
was  hushed. 


UNDER   THE  EAVES  151 

His  intention  of  speaking  to  the  night 
watchman  was,  however,  anticipated  the 
next  morning  by  that  guardian  himself.  A 
tap  upon  his  door  while  he  was  dressing 
caused  him  to  open  it  somewhat  hurriedly 
in  the  hope  of  finding  one  of  the  children 
there,  but  he  met  only  the  embarrassed  face 
of  Roberts.  Inviting  him  into  the  room, 
the  editor  continued  dressing.  Carefully 
closing  the  door  behind  him,  the  man  be- 
gan, with  evident  hesitation,  — 

"I  oughter  hev  told  ye  suthin'  afore, 
Mr.  Breeze ;  but  I  kalkilated,  so  to  speak, 
that  you  would  n't  be  bothered  one  way  or 
another,  and  so  ye  hadn't  any  call  to  know 
that  there  was  folks  here  "  — 

"Oh,  I  see,"  interrupted  Breeze  cheer- 
fully; "you  're  speaking  of  the  family  next 
door  —  the  landlord's  new  tenants." 

"They  ain't  exactly  that,"  said  Roberts, 
still  with  embarrassment.  "  The  fact  is  — 
ye  see  —  the  thing  points  this  way:  they 
ain't  no  right  to  be  here,  and  it 's  as  much 
as  my  place  is  worth  if  it  leaks  out  that 
they  are." 

Mr.  Breeze  suspended  his  collar-button- 
ing, and  stared  at  Roberts. 

"You  see,  sir,  they  're  mighty  poor,  and 


152  UNDER   THE  EAVES 

they  've  nowhere  else  to  go  —  and  I  reck- 
oned to  take  'em  in  here  for  a  spell  and  say 
nothing  about  it." 

"But  the  landlord  would  n't  object, 
surely?  I'll  speak  to  him  myself,"  said 
Breeze  impulsively. 

"Oh,  no;  don't!  "  said  Roberts  in  alarm; 
"he  would  n't  like  it.  You  see,  Mr.  Breeze, 
it 's  just  this  way:  the  mother,  she  's  a  born 
lady,  and  did  my  old  woman  a  good  turn  in 
old  times  when  the  family  was  rich;  but 
now  she  's  obliged  —  just  to  support  her- 
self, you  know  —  to  take  up  with  what 
she  gets,  and  she  acts  in  the  bally  in  the 
theatre,  you  see,  and  hez  to  come  in  late 
o'  nights.  In  them  cheap  boarding-houses, 
you  know,  the  folks  looks  down  upon  her  for 
that,  and  won't  hev  her,  and  in  the  cheap 
hotels  the  men  are  —  you  know  —  a  darned 
sight  wuss,  and  that  's  how  I  took  her 
and  her  kids  in  here,  where  no  one  knows 
'em." 

"I  see,"  nodded  the  editor  sympatheti- 
cally; "and  very  good  it  was  of  you,  my 
man." 

Roberts  looked  still  more  confused,  and 
stammered  with  a  forced  laugh,  "And  — 
so  —  I  'in  just  keeping  her  on  here,  unbe- 


UNDER    THE   EAVES  153 

knownst,  until  her  husband  gets" —  He 
stopped  suddenly. 

"So  she  has  a  husband  living,  then?" 
said  Breeze  in  surprise. 

"In  the  mines,  yes  —  in  the  mines!"  re- 
peated Roberts  with  a  monotonous  delibera- 
tion quite  distinct  from  his  previous  hesita- 
tion, "and  she's  only  waitin'  until  he  gets 
money  enough  —  to  —  to  take  her  away." 
He  stopped  and  breathed  hard. 

"  But  could  n't  you  —  could  n't  we  —  get 
her  some  more  furniture?  There  's  nothing 
in  that  room,  you  know,  not  a  chair  or 
table;  and  unless  the  other  room  is  better 
furnished  "  — 

"Eh?  Oh,  yes!"  said  Roberts  quickly, 
yet  still  with  a  certain  embarrassment;  "of 
course  that 's  better  furnished,  and  she 's 
quite  satisfied,  and  so  are  the  kids,  with 
anything.  And  now,  Mr.  Breeze,  I  reckon 
you  '11  say  nothin'  o'  this,  and  you  '11  never 
go  back  on  me?" 

"My  dear  Mr.  Roberts,"  said  the  editor 
gravely,  "from  this  moment  I  am  not  only 
blind,  but  deaf  to  the  fact  that  anybody 
occupies  this  floor  but  myself." 

"  I  knew  you  was  white  all  through,  Mr. 
Breeze,"  said  the  night  watchman,  grasping 


154  UNDER   THE  EAVES 

the  young  man's  hand  with  a  grip  of  iron, 
"and  I  telled  my  wife  so.  I  sez,  '  Jest  you 
let  me  tell  him  everything'  but  she  "  —  He 
stopped  again  and  became  confused. 

"And  she  was  quite  right,  I  dare  say," 
said  Breeze,  with  a  laugh;  "and  I  do  not 
want  to  know  anything.  And  that  poor 
woman  must  never  know  that  I  ever  knew 
anything,  either.  But  you  may  tell  your 
wife  that  when  the  mother  is  away  she  can 
bring  the  little  ones  in  here  whenever  she 
likes." 

"  Thank  ye  —  thank  ye,  sir !  —  and  I  '11 
just  run  down  and  tell  the  old  woman  now, 
and  won't  intrude  upon  your  dressin'  any 
longer." 

He  grasped  Breeze's  hand  again,  went 
out  and  closed  the  door  behind  him.  It 
might  have  been  the  editor's  fancy,  but  he 
thought  there  was  a  certain  interval  of 
silence  outside  the  door  before  the  night 
watchman's  heavy  tread  was  heard  along 
the  hall  again. 

For  several  evenings  after  this  Mr. 
Breeze  paid  some  attention  to  the  ballet  in 
his  usual  round  of  the  theatres.  Although 
he  had  never  seen  his  fair  neighbor,  he  had 
a  vague  idea  that  he  might  recognize  her 


UNDER   THE  EAVES  155 

through  some  likeness  to  her  children.  But 
in  vain.  In  the  opulent  charms  of  certain 
nymphs,  and  in  the  angular  austerities  of 
others,  he  failed  equally  to  discern  any  of 
those  refinements  which  might  have  distin- 
guished the  "born  lady  "  of  Roberts's  story, 
or  which  he  himself  had  seen  in  her  chil- 
dren. 

These  he  did  not  meet  again  during  the 
week,  as  his  duties  kept  him  late  at  the 
office;  but  from  certain  signs  in  his  room 
he  knew  that  Mrs.  Roberts  had  availed 
herself  of  his  invitation  to  bring  them  in 
with  her,  and  he  regularly  found  "Jinny's" 
doll  tucked  up  in  his  bed  at  night,  and  he 
as  regularly  disposed  of  it  outside  his  door 
in  the  morning,  with  a  few  sweets,  like  an 
offering,  tucked  under  its  rigid  arms. 

But  another  circumstance  touched  him 
more  delicately;  his  room  was  arranged 
with  greater  care  than  before,  and  with  an 
occasional  exhibition  of  taste  that  certainly 
had  not  distinguished  Mrs.  Roberts's  pre- 
vious ministrations.  One  evening  on  his 
return  he  found  a  small  bouquet  of  inex- 
pensive flowers  in  a  glass  on  his  writing- 
table.  He  loved  flowers  too  well  not  to 
detect  that  they  were  quite  fresh,  and  could 


156  UNDER   THE  EAVES 

have  been  put  there  only  an  hour  or  two 
before  he  arrived. 

The  next  evening  was  Saturday,  and,  as 
he  usually  left  the  office  earlier  on  that  day, 
it  occurred  to  him,  as  he  walked  home,  that 
it  was  about  the  time  his  fair  neighbor 
would  be  leaving  the  theatre,  and  that  it 
was  possible  he  might  meet  her. 

At  the  front  door,  however,  he  found 
Roberts,  who  returned  his  greeting  with  a 
certain  awkwardness  which  struck  him  as 
singular.  When  he  reached  the  niche  on 
the  landing  he  found  his  candle  was  gone, 
but  he  proceeded  on,  groping  his  way  up 
the  stairs,  with  an  odd  conviction  that  both 
these  incidents  pointed  to  the  fact  that  the 
woman  had  just  returned  or  was  expected. 

He  had  also  a  strange  feeling  —  which 
may  have  been  owing  to  the  darkness  — 
that  some  one  was  hidden  on  the  landing 
or  on  the  stairs  where  he  would  pass.  This 
was  further  accented  by  a  faint  odor  of 
patchouli,  as,  with  his  hand  on  the  rail,  he 
turned  the  corner  of  the  third  landing,  and 
he  was  convinced  that  if  he  had  put  out  his 
other  hand  it  would  have  come  in  contact 
with  his  mysterious  neighbor.  But  a  cer- 
tain instinct  of  respect  for  her  secret,  which 


UNDER   THE   EAVES  157 

she  was  even  now  guarding  in  the  darkness, 
withheld  him,  and  he  passed  on  quickly  to 
his  own  floor. 

Here  it  was  lighter;  the  moon  shot  a 
beam  of  silver  across  the  passage  from  an 
unshuttered  window  as  he  passed.  He 
reached  his  room  door,  entered,  but  instead 
of  lighting  the  gas  and  shutting  the  door, 
stood  with  it  half  open,  listening  in  the 
darkness. 

His  suspicions  were  verified;  there  was 
a  slight  rustling  noise,  and  a  figure  which 
had  evidently  followed  him  appeared  at  the 
end  of  the  passage.  It  was  that  of  a  woman 
habited  in  a  grayish  dress  and  cloak  of  the 
same  color;  but  as  she  passed  across  the 
band  of  moonlight  he  had  a  distinct  view  of 
her  anxious,  worried  face.  It  was  a  face 
no  longer  young;  it  was  worn  with  illness, 
but  still  replete  with  a  delicacy  and  faded 
beauty  so  inconsistent  with  her  avowed  pro- 
fession that  he  felt  a  sudden  pang  of  pain 
and  doubt.  The  next  moment  she  had 
vanished  in  her  room,  leaving  the  same 
faint  perfume  behind  her.  He  closed  his 
door  softly,  lit  the  gas,  and  sat  down  in  a 
state  of  perplexity.  That  swift  glimpse  of 
her  face  and  figure  had  made  her  story 


138  UNDER   THE  EAVES 

improbable  to  the  point  of  absurdity,  or 
possibly  to  the  extreme  of  pathos ! 

It  seemed  incredible  that  a  woman  of  that 
quality  should  be  forced  to  accept  a  voca- 
tion at  once  so  low,  so  distasteful,  and  so 
unremunerative.  With  her  evident  ante- 
cedents, had  she  no  friends  but  this  com- 
mon Western  night  watchman  of  a  bank? 
Had  Roberts  deceived  him?  Was  his  whole 
story  a  fabrication,  and  was  there  some 
complicity  between  the  two?  What  was 
it?  He  knit  his  brows. 

Mr.  Breeze  had  that  overpowering  know- 
ledge of  the  world  which  only  comes  with 
the  experience  of  twenty-five,  and  to  this 
he  superadded  the  active  imagination  of  a 
newspaper  man.  A  plot  to  rob  the  bank? 
These  mysterious  absences,  that  luggage 
which  he  doubted  not  was  empty  and  in- 
tended for  spoil !  But  why  encumber  her- 
self with  the  two  children?  Here  his  com- 
mon sense  and  instinct  of  the  ludicrous 
returned  and  he  smiled. 

But  he  could  not  believe  in  the  ballet 
dancer!  He  wondered,  indeed,  how  any 
manager  could  have  accepted  the  grim  satire 
of  that  pale,  worried  face  among  the  fairies, 
that  sad  refinement  amid  their  vacant  smiles 


UNDER    THE  EAVE.S  159 

and  rouged  cheeks.  And  then,  growing  sad 
again,  he  comforted  himself  with  the  reflec- 
tion that  at  least  the  children  were  not 
alone  that  night,  and  so  went  to  sleep. 

For  some  days  he  had  no  further  meeting 
with  his  neighbors.  The  disturbed  state 
of  the  city  —  for  the  Vigilance  Committee 
were  still  in  session  —  obliged  the  daily 
press  to  issue  "  extras, "  and  his  work  at  the 
office  increased. 

It  was  not  until  Sunday  again  that  he 
was  able  to  be  at  home.  Needless  to  say 
that  his  solitary  little  companions  were  duly 
installed  there,  while  he  sat  at  work  with 
his  proofs  on  the  table  before  him. 

The  stillness  of  the  empty  house  was  only 
broken  by  the  habitually  subdued  voices  of 
the  children  at  their  play,  when  suddenly 
the  harsh  stroke  of  a  distant  bell  came 
through  the  open  window.  But  it  was  no 
Sabbath  bell,  and  Mr.  Breeze  knew  it.  It 
was  the  tocsin  of  the  Vigilance  Committee, 
summoning  the  members  to  assemble  at 
their  quarters  for  a  capture,  a  trial,  or  an 
execution  of  some  wrongdoer.  To  him  it 
was  equally  a  summons  to  the  office  —  to 
distasteful  news  and  excitement. 

He  threw  his  proofs  aside  in  disgust,  laid 


UNDER   THE   EAVES 

down  his  pen,  seized  his  hat,  and  paused 
a  moment  to  look  round  for  his  playmates. 
But  they  were  gone!  He  went  into  the 
hall,  looked  into  the  open  door  of  their 
room,  but  they  were  not  there.  He  tried 
the  door  of  the  second  room,  but  it  was 
locked. 

Satisfied  that  they  had  stolen  downstairs 
in  their  eagerness  to  know  what  the  bell 
meant,  he  hurried  down  also,  met  Roberts 
in  the  passage,  —  a  singularly  unusual  cir- 
cumstance at  that  hour,  —  called  to  him  to 
look  after  the  runaways,  and  hurried  to  his 
office. 

Here  he  found  the  staff  collected,  ex- 
citedly discussing  the  news.  One  of  the 
Vigilance  Committee  prisoners,  a  notorious 
bully  and  ruffian,  detained  as  a  criminal 
and  a  witness,  had  committed  suicide  in  his 
cell.  Fortunately  this  was  all  reportorial 
work,  and  the  services  of  Mr.  Breeze  were 
not  required.  He  hurried  back,  relieved, 
to  his  room. 

When  he  reached  his  landing,  breath- 
lessly, he  heard  the  same  quick  rustle  he 
had  heard  that  memorable  evening,  and 
was  quite  satisfied  that  he  saw  a  figure  glide 
swiftly  out  of  the  open  door  of  his  room. 


UNDER   THE  EAVES  1C1 

It  was  no  doubt  his  neighbor,  who  had  been 
seeking  her  children,  and  as  he  heard  their 
voices  as  he  passed,  his  uneasiness  and  sus- 
picions were  removed. 

He  sat  down  again  to  his  scattered  papers 
and  proofs,  finished  his  work,  and  took  it 
to  the  office  on  his  way  to  dinner.  He  re- 
turned early,  in  the  hope  that  he  might 
meet  his  neighbor  again,  and  had  quite 
settled  his  mind  that  he  was  justified  in 
offering  a  civil  "Good-evening"  to  her,  in 
spite  of  his  previous  respectful  ignoring  of 
her  presence.  She  must  certainly  have 
become  aware  by  this  time  of  his  attention 
to  her  children  and  consideration  for  her- 
self, and  could  not  mistake  his  motives. 
But  he  was  disappointed,  although  he  came 
up  softly;  he  found  the  floor  in  darkness 
and  silence  on  his  return,  and  he  had  to  be 
content  with  lighting  his  gas  and  settling 
down  to  work  again. 

A  near  church  clock  had  struck  ten  when 
he  was  startled  by  the  sound  of  an  unfamil- 
iar and  uncertain  step  in  the  hall,  followed 
by  a  tap  at  his  door.  Breeze  jumped  to  his 
feet,  and  was  astonished  to  find  Dick,  the 
"printer's  devil,"  standing  on  the  threshold 
with  a  roll  of  proofs  in  his  hand. 


162  UNDER   TEE  EAVES 

"How  did  you  get  here?"  he  asked  tes- 
tily. 

"They  told  me  at  the  restaurant  they 
reckoned  you  lived  yere,  and  the  night 
watchman  at  the  door  headed  me  straight 
up.  When  he  knew  whar  I  kem  from  he 
wanted  to  know  what  the  news  was,  but  I 
told  him  he  'd  better  buy  an  extra  and 
see." 

"Well,  what  did  you  come  for?"  said 
the  editor  impatiently. 

"The  foreman  said  it  was  important,  and 
he  wanted  to  know  afore  he  went  to  press 
ef  this  yer  correction  was  yours  ?  " 

He  went  to  the  table,  unrolled  the  proofs, 
and,  taking  out  the  slip,  pointed  to  a 
marked  paragraph.  "The  foreman  says 
the  reporter  who  brought  the  news  allows 
he  got  it  straight  first-hand !  But  ef  you  've 
corrected  it,  he  reckons  you  know  best." 

Breeze  saw  at  a  glance  that  the  para- 
graph alluded  to  was  not  of  his  own  writ- 
ing, but  one  of  several  news  items  furnished 
by  reporters.  These  had  been  "set  up" 
in  the  same  "galley,"  and  consequently 
appeared  in  the  same  proof -slip.  He  was 
about  to  say  curtly  that  neither  the  matter 
nor  the  correction  was  his,  when  something 


UNDER    THE  EAVES  163 

odd  in  the  correction  of  the  item  struck 
him.  It  read  as  follows :  — 

"  It  appears  that  the  notorious  '  Jim 
Bodine, '  who  is  in  hiding  and  badly  wanted 
by  the  Vigilance  Committee,  has  been 
tempted  lately  into  a  renewal  of  his  old 
recklessness.  He  was  seen  in  Sacramento 
Street  the  other  night  by  two  separate  wit- 
nesses, one  of  whom  followed  him,  but  he 
escaped  in  some  friendly  doorway." 

The  words  "in  Sacramento  Street"  were 
stricken  out  and  replaced  by  the  correction 
"on  the  Saucelito  shore,"  and  the  words 
"friendly  doorway  "  were  changed  to 
"friendly  dinghy."  The  correction  was  not 
his,  nor  the  handwriting,  which  was  further 
disguised  by  being  an  imitation  of  print. 
A  strange  idea  seized  him. 

"Has  any  one  seen  these  proofs  since  I 
left  them  at  the  office?" 

"No,  only  the  foreman,  sir." 

He  remembered  that  he  had  left  the 
proofs  lying  openly  on  his  table  when  he 
was  called  to  the  office  at  the  stroke  of  the 
alarm  bell;  he  remembered  the  figure  he 
saw  gliding  from  his  room  on  his  return. 
She  had  been  there  alone  with  the  proofs ; 
she  only  could  have  tampered  with  them. 


164  UNDER    THE  EAVES 

The  evident  object  of  the  correction  was 
to  direct  the  public  attention  from  Sacra- 
mento Street  to  Saucelito,  as  the  probable 
whereabouts  of  this  "Jimmy  Bodine."  The 
street  below  was  Sacramento  Street,  the 
"friendly  doorway"  might  have  been  their 
own. 

That  she  had  some  knowledge  of  this 
Bodine  was  not  more  improbable  than  the 
ballet  story.  Her  strange  absences,  the 
mystery  surrounding  her,  all  seemed  to 
testify  that  she  had  some  connection  —  per- 
haps only  an  innocent  one  —  with  these  de- 
sperate people  whom  the  Vigilance  Commit- 
tee were  hunting  down.  Her  attempt  to 
save  the  man  was,  after  all,  no  more  illegal 
than  their  attempt  to  capture  him.  True, 
she  might  have  trusted  him,  Breeze,  with- 
out this  tampering  with  his  papers;  yet 
perhaps  she  thought  he  was  certain  to  dis- 
cover it  —  and  it  was  only  a  silent  appeal 
to  his  mercy.  The  corrections  were  ingen- 
ious and  natural  —  it  was  the  act  of  an  in- 
telligent, quick-witted  woman. 

Mr.  Breeze  was  prompt  in  acting  upon 
his  intuition,  whether  right  or  wrong.  He 
took  up  his  pen,  wrote  on  the  margin  of 
the  proof,  "Print  as  corrected,"  said  to  the 


UNDER    THE   EAVES  165 

boy  carelessly,  "The  corrections  are  all 
right,"  and  dismissed  him  quickly. 

The  corrected  paragraph  which  appeared 
in  the  "Informer  "  the  next  morning  seemed 
to  attract  little  public  attention,  the  greater 
excitement  being  the  suicide  of  the  impris- 
oned bully  and  the  effect  it  might  have 
upon  the  prosecution  of  other  suspected 
parties,  against  whom  the  dead  man  had 
been  expected  to  bear  witness. 

Mr.  Breeze  was  unable  to  obtain  any  in- 
formation regarding  the  desperado  Bodine's 
associates  and  relations;  his  correction  of 
the  paragraph  had  made  the  other  members 
of  the  staff  believe  he  had  secret  and  supe- 
rior information  regarding  the  fugitive,  and 
he  thus  was  estopped  from  asking  questions. 
But  he  felt  himself  justified  now  in  demand- 
ing fuller  information  from  Roberts  at  the 
earliest  opportunity. 

For  this  purpose  he  came  home  earlier 
that  night,  hoping  to  find  the  night  watch- 
man still  on  his  first  beat  in  the  lower  halls. 
But  he  was  disappointed.  He  was  amazed, 
however,  on  reaching  his  own  landing,  to 
find  the  passage  piled  with  new  luggage, 
some  of  that  ruder  type  of  rolled  blanket 
and  knapsack  known  as  a  "miner's  kit." 


166  UNDER    THE   EAVES 

He  was  still  more  surprised  to  hear  men's 
voices  and  the  sound  of  laughter  proceeding 
from  the  room  that  was  always  locked.  A 
sudden  sense  of  uneasiness  and  disgust,  he 
knew  not  why,  came  over  him. 

He  passed  quickly  into  his  room,  shut 
the  door  sharply,  and  lit  the  gas.  But  he 
presently  heard  the  door  of  the  locked  room 
open,  a  man's  voice,  slightly  elevated  by 
liquor  and  opposition,  saying,  "I  know 
what 's  due  from  one  gen'leman  to  'nother  " 
—  a  querulous,  objecting  voice  saying, 
"Hole  on!  not  now,"  and  a  fainter  femi- 
nine protest,  all  of  which  were  followed  by 
a  rap  on  his  door. 

Breeze  opened  it  to  two  strangers,  one 
of  whom  lurched  forward  unsteadily  with 
outstretched  hand.  He  had  a  handsome 
face  and  figure,  and  a  certain  consciousness 
of  it  even  in  the  abandon  of  liquor;  he  had 
an  aggressive  treacherousness  of  eye  which 
his  potations  had  not  subdued.  He  grasped 
Breeze's  hand  tightly,  but  dropped  it  the 
next  moment  perfunctorily  as  he  glanced 
round  the  room. 

"I  told  them  I  was  bound  to  come  in," 
he  said,  without  looking  at  Breeze,  "and 
say  '  Howdy !  '  to  the  man  that 's  bin  a  pal 


UNDER    THE   EAVES  167 

•to  my  women  folks  and  the  kids  —  and 
acted  white  all  through!  I  said  to  Mame, 
'  I  reckon  he  knows  who  /  am,  and  that  I 
kin  be  high-toned  to  them  that 's  high- 
toned;  kin  return  shake  for  shake  and  shot 
for  shot!'  Aye!  that's  me!  So  I  was 
bound  to  come  in  like  a  gen'leman,  sir,  and 
here  I  am !  " 

He  threw  himself  in  an  unproffered  chair 
and  stared  at  Breeze. 

"I'm  afraid,"  said  Breeze  dryly,  "that, 
nevertheless,  I  never  knew  who  you  were, 
and  that  even  now  I  am  ignorant  whom  I 
am  addressing." 

"That 's  just  it,"  said  the  second  man, 
with  a  querulous  protest,  which  did  not, 
however,  conceal  his  admiring  vassalage  to 
his  friend;  "that's  what  I'm  allus  telling 
Jim.  '  Jim,'  I  says,  '  how  is  folks  to  know 
you  're  the  man  that  shot  Kernel  Baxter, 
and  dropped  three  o'  them  Mariposa  Vigi- 
lants?  They  didn't  see  you  do  it!  They 
just  look  at  your  fancy  style  and  them  mus- 
taches of  yours,  and  allow  ye  might  be 
death  on  the  girls,  but  they  don't  know  ye! 
An'  this  man  yere —  he  's  a  scribe  in  them 
papers  —  writes  what  the  boss  editor  tells 
him,  and  lives  up  yere  on  the  roof,  'long- 


168  UNDER   THE  EAVES 

side  yer  wife  and  the  children  —  what 's  he 
knowin'  about  you  ?  '  Jim  's  all  right 
enough,"  he  continued,  in  easy  confidence 
to  Breeze,  "but  he's  too  fresh  'bout  him- 
self." 

Mr.  James  Bodine  accepted  this  tribute 
and  criticism  of  his  henchman  with  a  com- 
placent laugh,  which  was  not,  however, 
without  a  certain  contempt  for  the  speaker 
and  the  man  spoken  to.  His  bold,  selfish 
eyes  wandered  round  the  room  as  if  in 
search  of  some  other  amusement  than  his 
companions  offered. 

"I  reckon  this  is  the  room  which  that 
hound  of  a  landlord,  Rakes,  allowed  he  'd 
fix  up  for  our  poker  club  —  the  club  that 
Dan  Simmons  and  me  got  up,  with  a  few 
other  sports.  It  was  to  be  a  slap-up  affair, 
right  under  the  roof,  where  there  was  no 
chance  of  the  police  raiding  us.  But  the 
cur  weakened  when  the  Vigilants  started 
out  to  make  war  on  any  game  a  gen'leman 
might  hev  that  wasn't  in  their  gummy-bag, 
salt  pork  trade.  Well,  it 's  gettin'  a  long 
time  between  drinks,  gen'lemen,  ain't  it?" 
He  looked  round  him  significantly. 

Only  the  thought  of  the  woman  and  her 
children  in  the  next  room,  and  the  shame 


UNDER   THE  EAVES  169 

that  he  believed  she  was  enduring,  enabled 
Breeze  to  keep  his  temper  or  even  a  show 
of  civility. 

"I  'm  afraid,"  he  said  quietly,  "that 
you  '11  find  very  little  here  to  remind  you 
of  the  club  —  not  even  the  whiskey ;  for  I 
use  the  room  only  as  a  bedroom,  and  as  I 
am  a  workingman,  and  come  in  late  and 
go  out  early,  I  have  never  found  it  avail- 
able for  hospitality,  even  to  my  intimate 
friends.  I  am  very  glad,  however,  that 
the  little  leisure  I  have  had  in  it  has  enabled 
me  to  make  the  floor  less  lonely  for  your 
children." 

Mr.  Bodine  got  up  with  an  affected  yawn, 
turned  an  embarrassed  yet  darkening  eye 
on  Breeze,  and  lunged  unsteadily  to  the 
door.  "And  as  I  only  happened  in  to  do 
the  reg'lar  thing  between  high-toned  gen'le- 
men,  I  reckon  we  kin  say  '  Quits. ' '  He 
gave  a  coarse  laugh,  said  "So  long,"  nod- 
ded, stumbled  into  the  passage,  and  thence 
into  the  other  room. 

His  companion  watched  him  pass  out 
with  a  relieved  yet  protecting  air,  and  then, 
closing  the  door  softly,  drew  nearer  to 
Breeze,  and  said  in  husky  confidence,  — 

"Ye  ain't  seem'  him  at  his  best,  mister! 


170  UNDER   THE  EAVES 

He  's  bin  drinkin'  too  much,  and  this  yer 
news  has  upset  him." 

"What  news?"  asked  Breeze. 

"This  yer  suicide  o'  Irish  Jack!  " 

"Was  he  his  friend?" 

"Friend?"  ejaculated  the  man,  horrified 
at  the  mere  suggestion.  "Not  much! 
Why,  Irish  Jack  was  the  only  man  that 
could  hev  hung  Jim !  Now  he  's  dead,  in 
course  the  Vigilants  ain't  got  no  proof  agin 
Jim.  Jim  wants  to  face  it  out  now  an' 
stay  here,  but  his  wife  and  me  don't  see  it 
noways!  So  we  are  taking  advantage  o' 
the  lull  agin  him  to  get  him  off  down  the 
coast  this  very  night.  That 's  why  he 's 
been  off  his  head  drinkin'.  Ye  see,  when 
a  man  has  been  for  weeks  hidin'  —  part  o' 
the  time  in  that  room  and  part  o'  the  time 
on  the  wharf,  where  them  Vigilants  has 
been  watchin'  every  ship  that  left  in  order 
to  ketch  him,  he  's  inclined  to  celebrate  his 
chance  o'  getting  away  "  — 

"Part  of  the  time  in  that  room?"  inter- 
rupted Breeze  quickly. 

"Sartin!  Don't  ye  see?  He  allus  kem 
in  as  you  went  out  —  sale  I  —  and  got  away 
before  you  kem  back,  his  wife  all  the  time 
just  a-hoverin'  between  the  two  places,  and 


UNDER    THE  EAVES  171 

keeping  watch  for  him.  It  was  killin'  to 
her,  you  see,  for  she  was  n't  brought  up  to 
it,  whiles  Jim  did  n't  keer  —  had  two  revolv- 
ers and  kalkilated  to  kill  a  dozen  Vigilants 
afore  he  dropped.  But  that 's  over  now, 
and  when  I  've  got  him  safe  on  that 
'  plunger '  down  at  the  wharf  to-night,  and 
put  him  aboard  the  schooner  that 's  lying 
off  the  Heads,  he  's  all  right  agin." 

"And  Roberts  knew  all  this  and  was  one 
of  his  friends?  "  asked  Breeze. 

"Roberts  knew  it,  and  Roberts 's  wife 
used  to  be  a  kind  of  servant  to  Jim's  wife 
in  the  South,  when  she  was  a  girl,  but  I 
don't  know  ez  Roberts  is  his  friend !  " 

"He  certainly  has  shown  himself  one," 
said  Breeze. 

"Ye-e-s,"  said  the  stranger  meditatively, 
"ye-e-s."  He  stopped,  opened  the  door 
softly,  and  peeped  out,  and  then  closed  it 
again  softly.  "It's  sing'lar,  Mr.  Breeze," 
he  went  on  in  a  sudden  yet  embarrassed 
burst  of  confidence,  "that  Jim  thar  —  a 
man  thet  can  shoot  straight,  and  hez  fre- 
quent; a  man  thet  knows  every  skin  game 
goin' — that  thet  man  Jim,"  very  slowly, 
"  hez  n't  really  —  got  —  any  friends  —  'cept 
me  —  and  his  wife." 


172  UNDER    THE   EAVES 

"Indeed?"  said  Mr.  Breeze  dryly. 

"Sure!  Why,  you  yourself  didn't  cot- 
ton to  him  —  I  could  see  thet." 

Mr.  Breeze  felt  himself  redden  slightly, 
and  looked  curiously  at  the  man.  This 
vulgar  parasite,  whom  he  had  set  down  as 
a  worshiper  of  sham  heroes,  undoubtedly 
did  not  look  like  an  associate  of  Bodine's, 
and  had  a  certain  seriousness  that  demanded 
respect.  As  he  looked  closer  into  his  wide, 
round  face,  seamed  with  small-pox,  he  fan- 
cied he  saw  even  in  its  fatuous  imbecility 
something  of  that  haunting  devotion  he  had 
seen  on  the  refined  features  of  the  wife. 
He  said  more  gently,  — 

"But  one  friend  like  you  would  seem  to 
be  enough." 

"I  ain't  what  I  uster  be,  Mr.  Breeze," 
said  the  man  meditatively,  "and  mebbe  ye 
don't  know  who  I  am.  I  'm  Abe  Shuck- 
ster,  of  Shuckster's  Ranch  —  one  of  the 
biggest  in  Petalumy.  I  was  a  rich  man 
until  a  year  ago,  when  Jim  got  inter  trou- 
ble. What  with  mortgages  and  interest, 
payin'  up  Jim's  friends  and  buying  off  some 
ez  was  set  agin  him,  thar  ain't  much  left, 
and  when  I  've  settled  that  bill  for  the 
schooner  lying  off  the  Heads  there  I  reckon 


UNDER   THE  EAVES  173 

I  'm  about  played  out.  But  I  've  allus  a 
shanty  at  Petalumy,  and  mebbe  when  things 
is  froze  over  and  Jim  gets  back  —  you  '11 
come  and  see  him  —  for  you  ain't  seen  him 
at  his  best." 

"I  suppose  his  wife  and  children  go  with 
him?"  said  Breeze. 

"No!  He  's  agin  it,  and  wants  them  to 
come  later.  But  that 's  all  right,  for  you 
see  she  kin  go  back  to  their  own  house  at  the 
Mission,  now  that  the  Vigiiants  are  givin' 
up  shadderin'  it.  So  long,  Mr.  Breeze! 
We  're  startin'  afore  daylight.  Sorry  you 
didn't  see  Jim  in  condition." 

He  grasped  Breeze's  hand  warmly  and 
slipped  out  of  the  door  softly.  For  an  in- 
stant Mr.  Breeze  felt  inclined  to  follow  him 
into  the  room  and  make  a  kinder  adieu  to 
the  pair,  but  the  reflection  that  he  might 
embarrass  the  wife,  who,  it  would  seem, 
had  purposely  avoided  accompanying  her 
husband  when  he  entered,  withheld  him. 
And  for  the  last  few  minutes  he  had  been 
doubtful  if  he  had  any  right  to  pose  as  her 
friend.  Beside  the  devotion  of  the  man 
who  had  just  left  him,  his  own  scant  kind- 
ness to  her  children  seemed  ridiculous. 

He  went  to  bed,  but  tossed  uneasily  until 


174  UNDER    THE  EAVES 

he  fancied  he  heard  stealthy  footsteps  out- 
side his  door  and  in  the  passage.  Even 
then  he  thought  of  getting  up,  dressing, 
and  going  out  to  bid  farewell  to  the  fugi- 
tives. But  even  while  he  was  thinking  of 
it  he  fell  asleep  and  did  not  wake  until  the 
sun  was  shining  in  at  his  windows. 

He  sprang  to  his  feet,  threw  on  his  dress- 
ing-gown, and  peered  into  the  passage. 
Everything  was  silent.  He  stepped  outside 
—  the  light  streamed  into  the  hall  from  the 
open  doors  and  windows  of  both  rooms  — 
the  floor  was  empty;  not  a  trace  of  the 
former  occupants  remained.  He  was  turn- 
ing back  when  his  eye  fell  upon  the  battered 
wooden  doll  set  upright  against  his  door- 
jamb,  holding  stiffly  in  its  jointed  arms  a 
bit  of  paper  folded  like  a  note.  Opening 
it,  he  found  a  few  lines  written  in  pencil. 

God  bless  you  for  your  kindness  to  us, 
and  try  to  forgive  me  for  touching  your 
papers.  But  I  thought  that  you  would  de- 
tect it,  know  why  I  did  it,  and  then  help 
us,  as  you  did !  Good -by ! 

MAMIE  BODINE. 

Mr.  Breeze  laid  down  the  paper  with  a 


UNDER   THE  EAVES  175 

slight  accession  of  color,  as  if  its  purport 
had  been  ironical.  How  little  had  he  done 
compared  to  the  devotion  of  this  delicate 
woman  or  the  sacrifices  of  that  rough 
friend!  How  deserted  looked  this  nest 
under  the  eaves,  which  had  so  long  borne 
its  burden  of  guilt,  innocence,  shame,  and 
suffering!  For  many  days  afterwards  he 
avoided  it  except  at  night,  and  even  then 
he  often  found  himself  lying  awake  to  listen 
to  the  lost  voices  of  the  children. 

But  one  evening,  a  fortnight  later,  he 
came  upon  Roberts  in  the  hall.  "Well," 
said  Breeze,  with  abrupt  directness,  "did 
he  get  away?  " 

Roberts  started,  uttered  an  oath  which 
it  is  possible  the  Recording  Angel  passed 
to  his  credit,  and  said,  "Yes,  he  got  away 
all  right!" 

"Why,  hasn't  his  wife  joined  him?" 

"No.  Never,  in  this  world,  I  reckon; 
and  if  anywhere  in  the  next,  I  don't  want 
to  go  there!  "  said  Roberts  furiously. 

"Is  he  dead?" 

" Dead  ?    That  kind  don't  die ! " 

"What  do  you  mean?  " 

Roberts's  lips  writhed,  and  then,  with 
a  strong  effort,  he  said  with  deliberate  dis- 


176  UNDER   THE  EAVES 

tinctness,  "I  mean  —  that  the  hound  went 
off  with  another  woman  —  that  —  was  —  in 
—  that  schooner,  and  left  that  fool  Shuck- 
ster  adrift  in  the  plunger." 

"And  the  wife  and  children?  " 
"Shuckster  sold  his  shanty  at  Petaluma 
to  pay  their  passage  to  the  States.     Good- 
night!" 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN   "SAW 
LIFE"  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

THE  junior  partner  of  the  firm  of  Spar- 
low  &  Kane,  "Druggists  and  Apotheca- 
ries, of  San  Francisco,  was  gazing  medi- 
tatively out  of  the  corner  of  the  window  of 
their  little  shop  in  Dupont  Street.  He 
could  see  the  dimly  lit  perspective  of  the 
narrow  thoroughfare  fade  off  into  the  level 
sand  wastes  of  Market  Street  on  the  one 
side,  and  plunge  into  the  half-excavated 
bulk  of  Telegraph  Hill  on  the  other.  He 
could  see  the  glow  and  hear  the  rumble  of 
Montgomery  Street  —  the  great  central 
avenue  farther  down  the  hill.  Above  the 
housetops  was  spread  the  warm  blanket  of 
sea-fog  under  which  the  city  was  regularly 
laid  to  sleep  every  summer  night  to  the  cool 
lullaby  of  the  Northwest  Trades.  It  was 
already  half -past  eleven;  footsteps  on  the 
wooden  pavement  were  getting  rarer  and 
more  remote ;  the  last  cart  had  rumbled  by ; 
the  shutters  were  up  along  the  street;  the 
glare  of  his  own  red  and  blue  jars  was  the 


178      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

only  beacon  left  to  guide  the  wayfarers. 
Ordinarily  he  would  have  been  going  home 
at  this  hour,  when  his  partner,  who  occu- 
pied the  surgery  and  a  small  bedroom  at 
the  rear  of  the  shop,  always  returned  to 
relieve  him.  That  night,  however,  a  pro- 
fessional visit  would  detain  the  "Doctor" 
until  half -past  twelve.  There  was  still  an 
hour  to  wait.  He  felt  drowsy ;  the  myste- 
rious incense  of  the  shop,  that  combined 
essence  of  drugs,  spice,  scented  soap,  and 
orris  root  —  which  always  reminded  him  of 
the  Arabian  Nights  —  was  affecting  him. 
He  yawned,  and  then,  turning  away,  passed 
behind  the  counter,  took  down  a  jar  labeled 
"Glycyrr.  Glabra,"  selected  a  piece  of 
Spanish  licorice,  and  meditatively  sucked  it. 
Not  receiving  from  it  that  diversion  and 
sustenance  he  apparently  was  seeking,  he 
also  visited,  in  an  equally  familiar  manner, 
a  jar  marked  "Jujubes,"  and  returned  ru- 
minatingly  to  his  previous  position. 

If  I  have  not  in  this  incident  sufficiently 
established  the  youthfulness  of  the  junior 
partner,  I  may  add  briefly  that  he  was  just 
nineteen,  that  he  had  early  joined  the  emi- 
gration to  California,  and  after  one  or  two 
previous  light-hearted  essays  at  other  occu- 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      179 

pations,  for  which  he  was  singularly  unfit- 
ted, he  had  saved  enough  to  embark  on  his 
present  venture,  still  less  suited  to  his  tem- 
perament. In  those  adventurous  days  trades 
and  vocations  were  not  always  filled  by 
trained  workmen;  it  was  extremely  prob- 
able that  the  experienced  chemist  was  al- 
ready making  his  success  as  a  gold-miner, 
with  a  lawyer  and  a  physician  for  his  part- 
ners, and  Mr.  Kane's  inexperienced  posi- 
tion was  by  no  means  a  novel  one.  A 
slight  knowledge  of  Latin  as  a  written  lan- 
guage, an  American  schoolboy's  acquaint- 
ance with  chemistry  and  natural  philosophy, 
were  deemed  sufficient  by  his  partner,  a 
regular  physician,  for  practical  cooperation 
in  the  vending  of  drugs  and  putting  up  of 
prescriptions.  He  knew  the  difference  be- 
tween acids  and  alkalies  and  the  peculiar 
results  which  attended  their  incautious  com- 
bination. But  he  was  excessively  deliber- 
ate, painstaking,  and  cautious.  The  legend 
which  adorned  the  desk  at  the  counter, 
"Physicians'  prescriptions  carefully  pre- 
pared," was  more  than  usually  true  as  re- 
garded the  adverb.  There  was  no  danger 
of  his  poisoning  anybody  through  haste  or 
carelessness,  but  it  was  possible  that  an 


180      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

urgent  "case"  might  have  succumbed  to 
the  disease  while  he  was  putting  up  the 
remedy.  Nor  was  his  caution  entirely  pas- 
sive. In  those  days  the  "heroic"  practice 
of  medicine  was  in  keeping  with  the  abnor- 
mal development  of  the  country ;  there  were 
"record"  doses  of  calomel  and  quinine,  and 
he  had  once  or  twice  incurred  the  fury  of 
local  practitioners  by  sending  back  their 
prescriptions  with  a  modest  query. 

The  far-off  clatter  of  carriage  wheels 
presently  arrested  his  attention;  looking 
down  the  street,  he  could  see  the  lights  of 
a  hackney  carriage  advancing  towards  him. 
They  had  already  flashed  upon  the  open 
crossing  a  block  beyond  before  his  vague 
curiosity  changed  into  an  active  instinctive 
presentiment  that  they  were  coming  to  the 
shop.  He  withdrew  to  a  more  becoming 
and  dignified  position  behind  the  counter 
as  the  carriage  drew  up  with  a  jerk  before 
the  door. 

The  driver  rolled  from  his  box  and  opened 
the  carriage  door  to  a  woman  whom  he  as- 
sisted, between  some  hysterical  exclamations 
on  her  part  and  some  equally  incoherent 
explanations  of  his  own,  into  the  shop. 
Kane  saw  at  a  glance  that  both  were  under 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "  SAW  LIFE"      181 

the  influence  of  liquor,  and  one,  the  woman, 
was  disheveled  and  bleeding  about  the 
head.  Yet  she  was  elegantly  dressed  and 
evidently  en  fete,  with  one  or  two  "tri- 
color "  knots  and  ribbons  mingled  with  her 
finery.  Her  golden  hair,  matted  and  dark- 
ened with  blood,  had  partly  escaped  from 
her  French  bonnet  and  hung  heavily  over 
her  shoulders.  The  driver,  who  was  sup- 
porting her  roughly,  and  with  a  familiarity 
that  was  part  of  the  incongruous  spectacle, 
was  the  first  to  speak. 

"Madame  le  Blank!  ye  know!  Got  cut 
about  the  head  down  at  the  fete  at  South 
Park !  Tried  to  dance  upon  the  table,  and 
rolled  over  on  some  champagne  bottles. 
See?  Wants  plastering  up!  " 

"  Ah  brute !  Hog !  Nozzing  of  ze  kine  I 
Why  will  you  lie?  I  dance!  Ze  cowards, 
fools,  traitors  zere  upset  ze  table  and  I  fall. 
I  am  cut!  Ah,  my  God,  how  I  am  cut!  " 

She  stopped  suddenly  and  lapsed  heavily 
against  the  counter.  At  which  Kane  hur- 
ried around  to  support  her  into  the  surgery 
with  the  one  fixed  idea  in  his  bewildered 
mind  of  getting  her  out  of  the  shop,  and, 
suggestively,  into  the  domain  and  under 
the  responsibility  of  his  partner.  The  hack- 


182      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

man,  apparently  relieved  and  washing  his 
hands  of  any  further  complicity  in  the 
matter,  nodded  and  smiled,  and  saying,  "I 
reckon  I  '11  wait  outside,  pardner,"  retreated 
incontinently  to  his  vehicle.  To  add  to 
Kane's  half -ludicrous  embarrassment  the 
fair  patient  herself  slightly  resisted  his  sup- 
port, accused  the  hackrnan  of  "abandoning 
her,"  and  demanded  if  Kane  knew  "zee 
reason  of  zees  affair,"  yet  she  presently 
lapsed  again  into  the  large  reclining-chair 
which  he  had  wheeled  forward,  with  open 
mouth,  half -shut  eyes,  and  a  strange  Pier- 
rette mask  of  face,  combined  of  the  pallor 
of  faintness  and  chalk,  and  the  rouge  of 
paint  and  blood.  At  which  Kane's  cau- 
tiousness again  embarrassed  him.  A  little 
brandy  from  the  bottle  labeled  "Vini 
Galli"  seemed  to  be  indicated,  but  his  in- 
experience could  not  determine  if  her  relax- 
ation was  from  bloodlessness  or  the  reacting 
depression  of  alcohol.  In  this  dilemma  he 
chose  a  medium  course,  with  aromatic  spir- 
its of  ammonia,  and  mixing  a  diluted  quan- 
tity in  a  measuring-glass,  poured  it  between 
her  white  lips.  A  start,  a  struggle,  a  cough 
—  a  volley  of  imprecatory  French,  and  the 
knocking  of  the  glass  from  his  hand  fol- 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      183 

lowed  —  but  she  came  to!  He  quickly 
sponged  her  head  of  the  half-coagulated 
blood,  and  removed  a  few  fragments  of 
glass  from  a  long  laceration  of  the  scalp. 
The  shock  of  the  cold  water  and  the  appear- 
ance of  the  ensanguined  basin  frightened 
her  into  a  momentary  passivity.  But  when 
Kane  found  it  necessary  to  cut  her  hair  in 
the  region  of  the  wound  in  order  to  apply 
the  adhesive  plaster,  she  again  endeavored 
to  rise  and  grasp  the  scissors. 

"You  '11  bleed  to  death  if  you  're  not 
quiet,"  said  the  young  man  with  dogged 
gravity. 

Something  in  his  manner  impressed  her 
into  silence  again.  He  cut  whole  locks 
away  ruthlessly ;  he  was  determined  to  draw 
the  edges  of  the  wound  together  with  the 
strip  of  plaster  and  stop  the  bleeding  —  if 
he  cropped  the  whole  head.  His  excessive 
caution  for  her  physical  condition  did  not 
extend  to  her  superficial  adornment.  Her 
yellow  tresses  lay  on  the  floor,  her  neck 
and  shoulders  were  saturated  with  water 
from  the  sponge  which  he  continually  ap- 
plied, until  the  heated  strips  of  plaster  had 
closed  the  wound  almost  hermetically.  She 
whimpered,  tears  ran  down  her  cheeks;  but 


184      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE'* 

so  long  as  it  was  not  blood  the  young  man 
was  satisfied. 

In  the  midst  of  it  he  heard  the  shop  door 
open,  and  presently  the  sound  of  rapping 
on  the  counter.  Another  customer! 

Mr.  Kane  called  out,  "Wait  a  moment," 
and  continued  his  ministrations.  After  a 
pause  the  rapping  recommenced.  Kane 
was  just  securing  the  last  strip  of  plaster 
and  preserved  a  preoccupied  silence.  Then 
the  door  flew  open  abruptly  and  a  figure 
appeared  impatiently  on  the  threshold.  It 
was  that  of  a  miner  recently  returned  from 
the  gold  diggings  —  so  recently  that  he  evi- 
dently had  not  had  time  to  change  his  clothes 
at  his  adjacent  hotel,  and  stood  there  in  his 
high  boots,  duck  trousers,  and  flannel  shirt, 
over  which  his  coat  was  slung  like  a  hussar's 
jacket  from  his  shoulder.  Kane  would  have 
uttered  an  indignant  protest  at  the  intru- 
sion, had  not  the  intruder  himself  as  quickly 
recoiled  with  an  astonishment  and  contrition 
that  was  beyond  the  effect  of  any  reproval. 
He  literally  gasped  at  the  spectacle  before 
him.  A  handsomely  dressed  woman  reclin- 
ing in  a  chair;  lace  and  jewelry  and  ribbons 
depending  from  her  saturated  shoulders; 
tresses  of  golden  hair  filling  her  lap  and 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE1'      185 

lying  on  the  floor;  a  pail  of  ruddy  water 
and  a  sponge  at  her  feet,  and  a  pale  young 
man  bending  over  her  head  with  a  spirit 
lamp  and  strips  of  yellow  plaster! 

'"Scuse  me,  pard!  I  was  just  dropping 
in;  don't  you  hurry!  I  kin  wait,"  he 
stammered,  falling  back,  and  then  the  door 
closed  abruptly  behind  him. 

Kane  gathered  up  the  shorn  locks,  wiped 
the  face  and  neck  of  his  patient  with  a  clean 
towel  and  his  own  handkerchief,  threw  her 
gorgeous  opera  cloak  over  her  shoulders, 
and  assisted  her  to  rise.  She  did  so,  weakly 
but  obediently;  she  was  evidently  stunned 
and  cowed  in  some  mysterious  way  by  his 
material  attitude,  perhaps,  or  her  sudden 
realization  of  her  position;  at  least  the 
contrast  between  her  aggressive  entrance 
into  the  shop  and  her  subdued  preparation 
for  her  departure  was  so  remarkable  that  it 
affected  even  Kane's  preoccupation. 

"There,"  he  said,  slightly  relaxing  his 
severe  demeanor  with  an  encouraging  smile, 
"  I  think  this  will  do ;  we  ' ve  stopped  the 
bleeding.  It  will  probably  smart  a  little  as 
the  plaster  sets  closer.  I  can  send  my  part- 
ner, Dr.  Sparlow,  to  you  in  the  morning." 

She  looked  at  him  curiously  and  with  a 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

strange  smile.  "And  zees  Doctor  Sparr- 
low  —  eez  he  like  you,  M'sieu?" 

"He  is  older,  and  very  well  known," 
said  the  young  man  seriously.  "I  can 
safely  recommend  him." 

"Ah,"  she  repeated,  with  a  pensive  smile 
which  made  Kane  think  her  quite  pretty. 
"Ah  —  he  ez  older  —  your  Doctor  Sparr- 
low  —  but  you  are  strong,  M'sieu." 

"And,"  said  Kane  vaguely,  "he  will  tell 
you  what  to  do." 

"Ah,"  she  repeated  again  softly,  with 
the  same  smile,  "he  will  tell  me  what  to  do 
if  I  shall  not  know  myself.  Dat  ez  good." 

Kane  had  already  wrapped  her  shorn 
locks  in  a  piece  of  spotless  white  paper  and 
tied  it  up  with  narrow  white  ribbon  in  the 
dainty  fashion  dear  to  druggists'  clerks. 
As  he  handed  it  to  her  she  felt  in  her 
pocket  and  produced  a  handful  of  gold. 

"What  shall  I  pay  for  zees,  M'sieu?" 

Kane  reddened  a  little  —  solely  because 
of  his  slow  arithmetical  faculties.  Adhe- 
sive plaster  was  cheap  —  he  would  like  to 
have  charged  proportionately  for  the  exact 
amount  he  had  used;  but  the  division  was 
beyond  him!  And  he  lacked  the  trader's 
instinct. 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE'1      187 

"Twenty-five  cents,  I  think,"  he  hazarded 
briefly. 

She  started,  but  smiled  again.  "Twenty- 
five  cents  for  all  zees  —  ze  medicine,  ze 
strips  for  ze  head,  ze  hair  cut "  —  she 
glanced  at  the  paper  parcel  he  had  given 
her  —  "it  is  only  twenty-five  cents?  " 

"That 'sail." 

He  selected  from  her  outstretched  palm, 
with  some  difficulty,  the  exact  amount,  the 
smallest  coin  it  held.  She  again  looked  at 
him  curiously  —  half  confusedly  —  and 
moved  slowly  into  the  shop.  The  miner, 
who  was  still  there,  retreated  as  before  with 
a  gaspingly  apologetic  gesture  —  even  flat- 
tening himself  against  the  window  to  give 
her  sweeping  silk  flounces  freer  passage. 
As  she  passed  into  the  street  with  a  "  Merci, 
M'sieu,  good  a'night,"  and  the  hackman 
started  from  the  vehicle  to  receive  her,  the 
miner  drew  a  long  breath,  and  bringing  his 
fist  down  upon  the  counter,  ejaculated,  — 

"B'gosh!     She's  a  stunner!" 

Kane,  a  good  deal  relieved  at  her  depar- 
ture and  the  success  of  his  ministration, 
smiled  benignly. 

The  stranger  again  stared  after  the  re- 
treating carriage,  looked  around  the  shop, 


188      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

and  even  into  the  deserted  surgery,  and 
approached  the  counter  confidentially. 
"Look  yer,  pardner.  I  kem  straight  from 
St.  Jo,  Mizzorri,  to  Gold  Hill  —  whar  I  've 
got  a  claim  —  and  I  reckon  this  is  the  first 
time  I  ever  struck  San  Francisker.  I  ain't 
up  to  towny  ways  nohow,  and  I  allow  that 
mebbe  I  'm  rather  green.  So  we  '11  let  that 
pass!  Now  look  yer!"  he  added,  lean- 
ing over  the  counter  with  still  deeper  and 
even  mysterious  confidence,  "I  suppose  this 
yer  kind  o'  thing  is  the  regular  go  here, 
eh?  nothin'  new  to  you!  in  course  no!  But 
to  me,  pard,  it's  just  fetchin'  me!  Lifts 
me  clear  outer  my  boots  every  time !  Why, 
when  I  popped  into  that  thar  room,  and 
saw  that  lady  —  all  gold,  furbelows,  and 
spangles  —  at  twelve  o'clock  at  night,  sit- 
tin'  in  that  cheer  and  you  a-cuttin'  her  h'r 
and  swabbin'  her  head  o'  blood,  and  kinder 
prospectin'  for  *  indications,'  so  to  speak, 
and  doin'  it  so  kam  and  indifferent  like,  I 
sez  to  myself,  '  Rube,  Rube,'  sez  I,  '  this 
yer 's  life!  city  life!  San  Francisker  life! 
and  b'  gosh,  you  've  dropped  into  it!  ' 
Now,  pard,  look  yar!  don't  you  answer, 
ye  know,  ef  it  ain't  square  and  above  board 
for  me  to  know;  I  ain't  askin'  you  to  give 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      189 

the  show  away,  ye  know,  in  the  matter  of 
high-toned  ladies  like  that,  but "  (very  mys- 
teriously, and  sinking  his  voice  to  the  lowest 
confidential  pitch,  as  he  put  his  hand  to 
his  ear  as  if  to  catch  the  hushed  reply), 
"what  mout  hev  bin  happening,  pard?" 

Considerably  amused  at  the  man's  sim- 
plicity, Kane  replied  good  -  humoredly, : 
"Danced  among  some  champagne  bottles 
on  a  table  at  a  party,  fell  and  got  cut  by 
glass." 

The  stranger  nodded  his  head  slowly  and 
approvingly  as  he  repeated  with  infinite  de- 
liberateness :  "Danced  on  champagne  bot- 
tles, champagne!  you  said,  pard?  at  a 
pahty !  Yes !  "  (musingly  and  approvingly). 
"I  reckon  that 's  about  the  gait  they  take. 
She  'd  do  it." 

"Is  there  anything  I  can  do  for  you? 
sorry  to  have  kept  you  waiting,"  said  Kane, 
glancing  at  the  clock. 

"O  me!  Lord!  ye  needn't  mind  me. 
Why,  I  should  wait  for  anythin'  o'  the 
like  o'  that,  and  be  just  proud  to  do  it! 
And  ye  see,  I  sorter  helped  myself  while 
you  war  busy." 

"Helped  yourself?"  said  Kane  in  aston- 
ishment. 


190      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

"Yes,  outer  that  bottle."  He  pointed  to 
the  ammonia  bottle,  which  still  stood  on  the 
counter.  "It  seemed  to  be  handy  and  pop- 
ular." 

"Man!  you  might  have  poisoned  your- 
self." 

The  stranger  paused  a  moment  at  the 
idea.  "So  I  mout,  I  reckon,"  he  said 
musingly,  "that 's  so!  pizined  myself  jest  ez 
you  was  lookin'  arter  that  high-toned  case, 
and  kinder  bothered  you!  It 's  like  me!  " 

"I  mean  it  required  diluting;  you  ought 
to  have  taken  it  in  water,"  said  Kane. 

"I  reckon!  It  did  sorter  h'ist  me  over 
to  the  door  for  a  little  fresh  air  at  first! 
seemed  rayther  scaldy  to  the  lips.  But  wot 
of  it  that  got  thar,"  he  put  his  hand  gravely 
to  his  stomach,  "did  me  pow'ful  good." 

"What  was  the  matter  with  you?"  asked 
Kane. 

"Well,  ye  see,  pard "  (confidentially 
again),  "I  reckon  it's  suthin'  along  o'  my 
heart.  Times  it  gets  to  poundin'  away  like 
a  quartz  stamp,  and  then  it  stops  suddent 
like,  and  kinder  leaves  me  out  too." 

Kane  looked  at  him  more  attentively. 
He  was  a  strong,  powerfully  built  man  with 
a  complexion  that  betrayed  nothing  more 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      191 

serious  than  the  effects  of  mining  cookery. 
It  was  evidently  a  common  case  of  indiges- 
tion. 

"I  don't  say  it  would  not  have  done  you 
some  good  if  properly  administered,"  he 
replied.  "If  you  like  I  '11  put  up  a  diluted 
quantity  and  directions?  " 

"That 's  me,  every  time,  pardner!  "  said 
the  stranger  with  an  accent  of  relief. 
"And  look  yer,  don't  you  stop  at  that!  Ye 
just  put  me  up  some  samples  like  of  any- 
thin'  you  think  mout  be  likely  to  hit.  I  '11 
go  in  for  a  fair  show,  and  then  meander  in 
every  now  and  then,  betwixt  times,  to  let 
you  know.  Ye  don't  mind  my  drifting  in 
here,  do  ye  ?  It 's  about  ez  likely  a  place  ez 
I  struck  since  I  've  left  the  Sacramento  boat, 
and  my  hotel,  just  round  the  corner.  Ye 
just  sample  me  a  bit  o'  everythin' ;  don't 
mind  the  expense.  I  '11  take  your  word  for 
it.  The  way  you  —  a  young  fellow  —  jest 
stuck  to  your  work  in  thar,  cool  and  kam 
as  a  woodpecker  —  not  minding  how  high- 
toned  she  was  —  nor  the  jewelery  and  span- 
gles she  had  on  —  jest  got  me!  I  sez  to 
myself,  '  Rube,'  sez  I,  '  whatever 's  wrong 
o'  your  insides,  you  jes  stick  to  that  feller 
to  set  ye  right. ' ' 


192      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

The  junior  partner's  face  reddened  as  he 
turned  to  his  shelves  ostensibly  for  consul- 
tation. Conscious  of  his  inexperience,  the 
homely  praise  of  even  this  ignorant  man 
was  not  ungrateful.  He  felt,  too,  that  his 
treatment  of  the  Frenchwoman,  though 
successful,  might  not  be  considered  remu- 
nerative from  a  business  point  of  view  by 
his  partner.  He  accordingly  acted  upon 
the  suggestion  of  the  stranger  and  put  up 
two  or  three  specifics  for  dyspepsia.  They 
were  received  with  grateful  alacrity  and  the 
casual  display  of  considerable  gold  in  the 
stranger's  pocket  in  the  process  of  payment. 
He  was  evidently  a  successful  miner. 

After  bestowing  the  bottles  carefully 
about  his  person,  he  again  leaned  confiden- 
tially towards  Kane.  "I  reckon  of  course 
you  know  this  high-toned  lady,  being  in 
the  way  of  seein'  that  kind  o'  folks.  I  sup- 
pose you  won't  mind  telling  me,  ez  a  stran- 
ger. But "  (he  added  hastily,  with  a  depre- 
catory wave  of  his  hand),  "perhaps  ye 
would." 

Mr.  Kane,  in  fact,  had  hesitated.  He 
knew  vaguely  and  by  report  that  Madame 
le  Blanc  was  the  proprietress  of  a  famous 
restaurant,  over  which  she  had  rooms  where 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      193 

private  gambling  was  carried  on  to  a  great 
extent.  It  was  also  alleged  that  she  was 
protected  by  a  famous  gambler  and  a  some- 
what notorious  bully.  Mr.  Kane's  caution 
suggested  that  he  had  no  right  to  expose 
the  reputation  of  his  chance  customer.  He 
was  silent. 

The  stranger's  face  became  intensely 
sympathetic  and  apologetic.  "I  see!  — 
not  another  word,  pard !  It  ain't  the  square 
thing  to  be  givin'  her  away,  and  I  oughtn't 
to  hev  asked.  Well  —  so  long !  I  reckon 
I  '11  jest  drift  back  to  the  hotel.  I  ain't 
been  in  San  Francisker  mor'  'n  three  hours, 
and  I  calkilate,  pard,  that  I  've  jest  seen 
about  ez  square  a  sample  of  high-toned  life 
as  fellers  ez  haz  bin  here  a  year.  Well, 
hastermanyanner  —  ez  the  Greasers  say. 
I  '11  be  droppin'  in  to-morrow.  My  name  's 
Reuben  Allen  o'  Mariposa.  I  know  yours; 
it 's  on  the  sign,  and  it  ain't  Sparlow." 

He  cast  another  lingering  glance  around 
the  shop,  as  if  loath  to  leave  it,  and  then 
slowly  sauntered  out  of  the  door,  pausing 
in  the  street  a  moment,  in  the  glare  of  the 
red  light,  before  he  faded  into  darkness. 
Without  knowing  exactly  why,  Kane  had 
an  instinct  that  the  stranger  knew  no  one  in 


194      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

San  Francisco,  and  after  leaving  the  shop 
was  going  into  utter  silence  and  obscurity. 

A  few  moments  later  Dr.  Spar  low  re- 
turned to  relieve  his  wearied  partner.  A 
pushing,  active  man,  he  listened  impatiently 
to  Kane's  account  of  his  youthful  practice 
with  Madame  le  Blanc,  without,  however, 
dwelling  much  on  his  methods.  "You 
ought  to  have  charged  her  more,"  the  elder 
said  decisively.  "  She  'd  have  paid  it. 
She  only  came  here  because  she  was  ashamed 
to  go  to  a  big  shop  in  Montgomery  Street 
—  and  she  won't  come  again." 

"But  she  wants  you  to  see  her  to-mor- 
row," urged  Kane,  "and  I  told  her  you 
would!" 

"You  say  it  was  only  a  superficial  cut?  " 
queried  the  doctor,  "and  you  closed  it? 
Uniph!  what  can  she  want  to  see  me  for?  " 
He  paid  more  attention,  however,  to  the 
case  of  the  stranger,  Allen.  "When  he 
comes  here  again,  manage  to  let  me  see 
him."  Mr.  Kane  promised,  yet  for  some 
indefinable  reason  he  went  home  that  night 
not  quite  as  well  satisfied  with  himself. 

He  was  much  more  concerned  the  next 
morning  when,  after  relieving  the  doctor 
for  his  regular  morning  visits,  he  was  star- 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      195 

tied  an  hour  later  by  the  abrupt  return  of 
that  gentleman.  His  face  was  marked  by 
some  excitement  and  anxiety,  which  never- 
theless struggled  with  that  sense  of  the  ludi- 
crous which  Californians  in  those  days  im- 
ported into  most  situations  of  perplexity  or 
catastrophe.  Putting  his  hands  deeply  into 
his  trousers  pockets,  he  confronted  his  youth- 
ful partner  behind  the  counter. 

"How  much  did  you  charge  that  French- 
woman?" he  said  gravely. 

"Twenty -five  cents,"  said  Kane  timidly. 

"Well,  I'd  give  it  back  and  add  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  if  she  had  never 
entered  the  shop." 

"What 's  the  matter?" 

"Her  head  will  be  —  and  a  mass  of  it,  in 
a  day,  I  reckon!  Why,  man,  you  put 
enough  plaster  on  it  to  clothe  and  paper 
the  dome  of  the  Capitol!  You  drew  her 
scalp  together  so  that  she  couldn't  shut  her 
eyes  without  climbing  up  the  bed -post! 
You  mowed  her  hair  off  so  that  she  '11  have 
to  wear  a  wig  for  the  next  two  years  —  and 
handed  it  to  her  in  a  beau-ti-ful  sealed 
package !  They  talk  of  suing  me  and  kill- 
ing you  out  of  hand." 

"She   was   bleeding    a   great  deal    and 


196      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

looked  faint,"  said  the  junior  partner;  "I 
thought  I  ought  to  stop  that." 

"And  you  did  —  by  thunder!  Though 
it  might  have  been  better  business  for  the 
shop  if  I  'd  found  her  a  crumbling  ruin 
here,  than  lathed  and  plastered  in  this  fash- 
ion, over  there!  However,"  he  added,  with 
a  laugh,  seeing  an  angry  light  in  his  junior 
partner's  eye,  "sAe  don't  seem  to  mind  it  — 
the  cursing  all  comes  from  them.  She 
rather  likes  your  style  and  praises  it  — 
that 's  what  gets  me !  Did  you  talk  to  her 
much,"  he  added,  looking  critically  at  his 
partner. 

"I  only  told  her  to  sit  still  or  she  'd  bleed 
to  death,"  said  Kane  curtly. 

"Humph!  —  she  jabbered  something 
about  your  being  l  strong '  and  knowing 
just  how  to  handle  her.  Well,  it  can't  be 
helped  now.  I  think  I  came  in  time  for 
the  worst  of  it  and  have  drawn  their  fire. 
Don't  do  it  again.  The  next  time  a  woman 
with  a  cut  head  and  long  hair  tackles  you, 
fill  up  her  scalp  with  lint  and  tannin,  and 
pack  her  off  to  some  of  the  big  shops  and 
make  them  pick  it  out."  And  with  a  good- 
humored  nod  he  started  off  to  finish  his  in- 
terrupted visits. 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      197 

With  a  vague  sense  of  remorse,  and  yet 
a  consciousness  of  some  injustice  clone  him, 
Mr.  Kane  resumed  his  occupation  with  ni- 
ters and  funnels,  and  mortars  and  tritura- 
tions.  He  was  so  gloomily  preoccupied 
that  he  did  not,  as  usual,  glance  out  of  the 
window,  or  he  would  have  observed  the 
mining  stranger  of  the  previous  night  before 
it.  It  was  not  until  the  man's  bowed  shoul- 
ders blocked  the  light  of  the  doorway  that 
he  looked  up  and  recognized  him.  Kane 
was  in  no  mood  to  welcome  his  appearance. 
His  presence,  too,  actively  recalled  the  last 
night's  adventure  of  which  he  was  a  witness 
—  albeit  a  sympathizing  one.  Kane  shrank 
from  the  illusions  which  he  felt  he  would  be 
sure  to  make.  And  with  his  present  ill 
luck,  he  was  by  no  means  sure  that  his 
ministrations  even  to  him  had  been  any 
more  successful  than  they  had  been  to  the 
Frenchwoman.  But  a  glance  at  his  good- 
humored  face  and  kindling  eyes  removed 
that  suspicion.  Nevertheless,  he  felt  some- 
what embarrassed  and  impatient,  and  per- 
haps could  not  entirely  conceal  it.  He  for- 
got that  the  rudest  natures  are  sometimes 
the  most  delicately  sensitive  to  slights,  and 
the  stranger  had  noticed  his  manner  and 
began  apologetically. 


198      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFL 

"I  allowed  I'd  just  drop  in  anyway  to 
tell  ye  that  these  thar  pills  you  giv'  me  did 
me  a  heap  o'  good  so  far  —  though  mebbe 
it 's  only  fair  to  give  the  others  a  show  too, 
which  I  'm  reckoning  to  do."  He  paused, 
and  then  in  a  submissive  confidence  went 
on :  "  But  first  I  wanted  to  hev  you  excuse 
me  for  havin'  asked  all  them  questions 
about  that  high-toned  lady  last  night,  when 
it  warn't  none  of  my  business.  I  am  a 
darned  fool." 

Mr.  Kane  instantly  saw  that  it  was  no 
use  to  keep  up  his  attitude  of  secrecy,  or 
impose  upon  the  ignorant,  simple  man,  and 
said  hurriedly :  "  Oh  no.  The  lady  is  very 
well  known.  She  is  the  proprietress  of  a 
restaurant  down  the  street  —  a  house  open 
to  everybody.  Her  name  is  Madame  le 
Blanc;  you  may  have  heard  of  her  before?  " 

To  his  surprise  the  man  exhibited  no 
diminution  of  interest  nor  change  of  senti- 
ment at  this  intelligence.  "Then,"  he  said 
slowly,  "I  reckon  I  might  get  to  see  her 
again.  Ye  see,  Mr.  Kane,  I  rather  took 
a  fancy  to  her  general  style  and  gait  — 
arter  seem'  her  in  that  fix  last  night.  It 
was  rather  like  them  play  pictures  on  the 
stage.  Ye  don't  think  she  'd  make  any 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      199 

fuss  to  seein'  a  rough  old  '  forty-niner  '  like 
me?" 

"Hardly,"  said  Kane,  "but  there  might 
be  some  objection  from  her  gentlemen 
friends,"  he  added,  with  a  smile,  — "Jack 
Lane,  a  gambler,  who  keeps  a  faro  bank  in 
her  rooms,  and  Jimmy  O'Ryan,  a  prize- 
fighter, who  is  one  of  her  '  chuckers  out. ' ' 

His  further  relation  of  Madame  le  Blanc's 
entourage  apparently  gave  the  miner  no 
concern.  He  looked  at  Kane,  nodded,  and 
repeated  slowly  and  appreciatively:  "Yes, 
keeps  a  gamblin'  and  faro  bank  and  a  prize- 
fighter —  I  reckon  that  might  be  about  her 
gait  and  style  too.  And  you  say  she 
lives  "  — 

He  stopped,  for  at  this  moment  a  man 
entered  the  shop  quickly,  shut  the  door  be- 
hind him,  and  turned  the  key  in  the  lock. 
It  was  done  so  quickly  that  Kane  instinc- 
tively felt  that  the  man  had  been  loitering 
in  the  vicinity  and  had  approached  from 
the  side  street.  A  single  glance  at  the  in- 
truder's face  and  figure  showed  him  that 
it  was  the  bully  of  whom  he  had  just 
spoken.  He  had  seen  that  square,  brutal 
face  once  before,  confronting  the  police  in 
a  riot,  and  had  not  forgotten  it.  But  to- 


200      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

day,  with  the  flush  of  liquor  on  it,  it  had 
an  impatient  awkwardness  and  confused 
embarrassment  that  he  could  not  account 
for.  He  did  not  comprehend  that  the  gen- 
uine bully  is  seldom  deliberate  of  attack, 
and  is  obliged  —  in  common  with  many  of 
the  combative  lower  animals  —  to  lash  him- 
self into  a  previous  fury  of  provocation. 
This  probably  saved  him,  as  perhaps  some 
instinctive  feeling  that  he  was  in  no  imme- 
diate danger  kept  him  cool.  He  remained 
standing  quietly  behind  the  counter.  Allen 
glanced  around  carelessly,  looking  at  the 
shelves. 

The  silence  of  the  two  men  apparently 
increased  the  ruffian's  rage  and  embarrass- 
ment. Suddenly  he  leaped  into  the  air 
with  a  whoop  and  clumsily  executed  a  negro 
double  shuffle  on  the  floor,  which  jarred  the 
glasses  —  yet  was  otherwise  so  singularly 
ineffective  and  void  of  purpose  that  he 
stopped  in  the  midst  of  it  and  had  to  con- 
tent himself  with  glaring  at  Kane. 

"Well,"  said  Kane  quietly,  "what  does 
all  this  mean?  What  do  you  want  here?  " 

"What  does  it  mean?"  repeated  the 
bully,  finding  his  voice  in  a  high  falsetto, 
designed  to  imitate  Kane's.  "It  means 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      201 

I  'm  going  to  play  merry  h — 11  with  this 
shop!  It  means  I  'm  goin'  to  clean  it  out 
and  the  blank  hair-cuttin'  blank  that  keeps 
it.  What  do  I  want  here  ?  Well  —  what 
I  want  I  intend  to  help  myself  to,  and  all 
h — 11  can't  stop  me!  And  "  (working  him- 
self to  the  striking  point)  "who  the  blank 
are  you  to  ask  me?"  He  sprang  towards 
the  counter,  but  at  the  same  moment  Allen 
seemed  to  slip  almost  imperceptibly  and 
noiselessly  between  them,  and  Kane  found 
himself  confronted  only  by  the  miner's 
broad  back. 

"Hoi'  yer  hosses,  stranger,"  said  Allen 
slowly,  as  the  ruffian  suddenly  collided  with 
his  impassive  figure.  "I'm  a  sick  man 
comin'  in  yer  for  medicine.  I  've  got  some- 
thin'  wrong  with  my  heart,  and  goin's  on 
like  this  yer  kinder  sets  it  to  thumpin'." 

"Blank  you  and  your  blank  heart!" 
screamed  the  bully,  turning  in  a  fury  of 
amazement  and  contempt  at  this  impotent 
interruption.  "  Who  "  —  but  his  voice 
stopped.  Allen's  powerful  right  arm  had 
passed  over  his  head  and  shoulders  like  a 
steel  hoop,  and  pinioned  his  elbows  against 
his  sides.  Held  rigidly  upright,  he  at- 
tempted to  kick,  but  Allen's  right  leg  here 


202      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

advanced,  and  firmly  held  his  lower  limbs 
against  the  counter  that  shook  to  his  strug- 
gles and  blasphemous  outcries.  Allen 
turned  quietly  to  Kane,  and,  with  a  gesture 
of  his  unemployed  arm,  said  confidentially : 

"Would  ye  mind  passing  me  down  that 
ar  Romantic  Spirits  of  Ammonyer  ye  gave 
me  last  night?" 

Kane  caught  the  idea,  and  handed  him 
the  bottle. 

"Thar,"  said  Allen,  taking  out  the  stop- 
per and  holding  the  pungent  spirit  against 
the  bully's  dilated  nostrils  and  vociferous 
mouth,  "thar,  smell  that,  and  taste  it,  it 
will  do  ye  good ;  it  was  powerful  kammin' 
to  me  last  night." 

The  ruffian  gasped,  coughed,  choked,  but 
his  blaspheming  voice  died  away  in  a  suffo- 
cating hiccough. 

"Thar,"  continued  Allen,  as  his  now  sub- 
dued captive  relaxed  his  struggling,  "ye  V 
better,  and  so  am  I.  It 's  quieter  here  now, 
and  ye  ain't  affectin'  my  heart  so  bad.  A 
little  fresh  air  will  make  us  both  all  right." 
He  turned  again  to  Kane  in  his  former  sub- 
dued confidential  manner. 

"Would  ye  mind  openin'  that  door?  " 

Kane  flew  to  the  door,  unlocked  it,  and 


REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      203 

held  it  wide  open.  The  bully  again  began 
to  struggle,  but  a  second  inhalation  of  the 
hartshorn  quelled  him,  and  enabled  his 
captor  to  drag  him  to  the  door.  As  they 
emerged  upon  the  sidewalk,  the  bully,  with 
a  final  desperate  struggle,  freed  his  arm  and 
grasped  his  pistol  at  his  hip-pocket,  but  at 
the  same  moment  Allen  deliberately  caught 
his  hand,  and  with  a  powerful  side  throw 
cast  him  on  the  pavement,  retaining  the 
weapon  in  his  own  hand.  "I  've  one  of  my 
own,"  he  said  to  the  prostrate  man,  "but 
I  reckon  I  '11  keep  this  yer  too,  until  you  're 
better." 

The  crowd  that  had  collected  quickly, 
recognizing  the  notorious  and  discomfited 
bully,  were  not  of  a  class  to  offer  him  any 
sympathy,  and  he  slunk  away  followed  by 
their  jeers.  Allen  returned  quietly  to  the 
shop.  Kane  was  profuse  in  his  thanks, 
and  yet  oppressed  with  his  simple  friend's 
fatuous  admiration  for  a  woman  who  could 
keep  such  ruffians  in  her  employ.  "You 
know  who  that  man  was,  I  suppose?"  he 
said. 

"I  reckon  it  was  that  'er  prize-fighter 
belongin'  to  that  high-toned  lady,"  re- 
turned Allen  simply.  "But  he  don't  know 


204      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

anything  about  rastlin\  b'  gosh;  only  that 
I  was  afraid  o'  bringin'  on  that  heart  trou- 
ble, I  mout  hev  hurt  him  bad." 

"They  think  "  — hesitated  Kane,    "that 

—  I  —  was  rough  in  my  treatment  of  that 
woman  and  maliciously  cut   off   her  hair. 
This  attack  was  revenge  —  or  "  —  he  hesi- 
tated  still   more,    as   he   remembered    Dr. 
Sparlow's  indication  of  the  woman's  feeling 

—  "or  that  bully's  idea  of  revenge." 

"I  see,"  nodded  Allen,  opening  his  small 
sympathetic  eyes  on  Kane  with  an  exasper- 
ating air  of  secrecy  —  "just  jealousy." 

Kane  reddened  in  sheer  hopelessness  of 
explanation.  "No;  it  was  earning  his 
wages,  as  he  thought." 

"Never  ye  mind,  pard,"  said  Allen  con- 
fidentially. "I'll  set  'em  both  right.  Ye 
see,  this  sorter  gives  me  a  show  to  call  at 
that  thar  restaurant  and  give  him  back  his 
six-shooter,  and  set  her  on  the  right  trail 
for  you.  Why,  Lordy!  I  was  here  when 
you  was  fixin'  her  —  I'm  testimony  o'  the 
way  you  did  it  —  and  she  '11  remember  me. 
I  '11  sorter  waltz  round  thar  this  afternoon. 
But  I  reckon  I  won't  be  keepin'  you  from 
your  work  any  longer.  And  look  yar !  — 
I  say,  pard!  —  this  is  seein'  life  in  'Frisco 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      205 

—  ain't  it?  Gosh!  I've  had  more  high 
times  in  this  very  shop  in  two  days,  than 
I  've  had  in  two  years  of  St.  Jo.  So  long, 
Mr.  Kane!  "  He  waved  his  hand,  lounged 
slowly  out  of  the  shop,  gave  a  parting 
glance  up  the  street,  passed  the  window,  and 
was  gone. 

The  next  day  being  a  half-holiday  for 
Kane,  he  did  not  reach  the  shop  until  after- 
noon. "Your  mining  friend  Allen  has  been 
here,"  said  Doctor  Sparlow.  "I  took  the 
liberty  of  introducing  myself,  and  induced 
him  to  let  me  carefully  examine  him.  He 
was  a  little  shy,  and  I  am  sorry  for  it,  as 
I  fear  he  has  some  serious  organic  trouble 
with  his  heart  and  ought  to  have  a  more 
thorough  examination."  Seeing  Kane's 
unaffected  concern,  he  added,  "You  might 
influence  him  to  do  so.  He  'B  a  good  fellow 
and  ought  to  take  some  care  of  himself. 
By  the  way,  he  told  me  to  tell  you  that 
he  'd  seen  Madame  le  Blanc  and  made  it 
all  right  about  you.  He  seems  to  be  quite 
infatuated  with  the  woman." 

"I  'm  sorry  he  ever  saw  her,"  said  Kane 
bitterly. 

"Well,  his  seeing  her  seems  to  have 
saved  the  shop  from  being  smashed  up,  and 


206      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

you  from  getting  a  punched  head,"  returned 
the  Doctor  with  a  laugh.  "He  's  no  fool  — 
yet  it 's  a  freak  of  human  nature  that  a 
simple  hayseed  like  that  —  a  man  who  's 
lived  in  the  backwoods  all  his  life,  is  likely 
to  be  the  first  to  tumble  before  a  pot  of 
French  rouge  like  her." 

Indeed,  in  a  couple  of  weeks,  there  was 
no  further  doubt  of  Mr.  Reuben  Allen's 
infatuation.  He  dropped  into  the  shop  fre- 
quently on  his  way  to  and  from  the  restau- 
rant, where  he  now  regularly  took  his  meals ; 
he  spent  his  evenings  in  gambling  in  its 
private  room.  Yet  Kane  was  by  no  means 
sure  that  he  was  losing  his  money  there  un- 
fairly, or  that  he  was  used  as  a  pigeon  by 
the  proprietress  and  her  friends.  The  bully 
O'Ryan  was  turned  away;  Sparlow  grimly 
suggested  that  Allen  had  simply  taken  his 
place,  but  Kane  ingeniously  retorted  that 
the  Doctor  was  only  piqued  because  Allen 
had  evaded  his  professional  treatment. 
Certainly  the  patient  had  never  consented 
to  another  examination,  although  he  repeat- 
edly and  gravely  bought  medicines,  and  was 
a  generous  customer.  Once  or  twice  Kane 
thought  it  his  duty  to  caution  Allen  against 
his  new  friends  and  enlighten  him  as  to 


HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      207 

Madame  le  Blanc's  reputation,  but  his  sug- 
gestions were  received  with  a  good-humored 
submission  that  was  either  the  effect  of  un- 
belief or  of  perfect  resignation  to  the  fact, 
and  he  desisted.  One  morning  Dr.  Spar- 
low  said  cheerfully :  — 

"  Would  you  like  to  hear  the  last  thing 
about  your  friend  and  the  Frenchwoman? 
The  boys  can't  account  for  her  singling  out 
a  fellow  like  that  for  her  friend,  so  they  say 
that  the  night  that  she  cut  herself  at  the 
fete  and  dropped  in  here  for  assistance,  she 
found  nobody  here  but  Allen  —  a  chance 
customer !  That  it  was  he  who  cut  off  her 
hair  and  bound  up  her  wounds  in  that  sin- 
cere fashion,  and  she  believed  he  had  saved 
her  life."  The  Doctor  grinned  maliciously 
as  he  added:  "And  as  that's  the  way  his- 
tory is  written  you  see  your  reputation  is 
safe." 

It  may  have  been  a  month  later  that 
San  Francisco  was  thrown  into  a  paroxysm 
of  horror  and  indignation  over  the  assassi- 
nation of  a  prominent  citizen  and  official  in 
the  gambling-rooms  of  Madame  le  Blanc, 
at  the  hands  of  a  notorious  gambler.  The 
gambler  had  escaped,  but  in  one  of  those 
rare  spasms  of  vengeful  morality  which 


208      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN   "SAW  LIFE" 

sometimes  overtakes  communities  who  have 
too  long  winked  at  and  suffered  the  exist- 
ence of  evil,  the  fair  proprietress  and  her 
whole  entourage  were  arrested  and  haled 
before  the  coroner's  jury  at  the  inquest. 
The  greatest  excitement  prevailed;  it  was 
said  that  if  the  jury  failed  in  their  duty, 
the  Vigilance  Committee  had  arranged  for 
the  destruction  of  the  establishment  and 
the  deportation  of  its  inmates.  The  crowd 
that  had  collected  around  the  building  was 
reinforced  by  Kane  and  Dr.  Sparlow,  wLi 
had  closed  their  shop  in  the  next  block  to 
attend.  When  Kane  had  fought  his  way 
into  the  building  and  the  temporary  court, 
held  in  the  splendidly  furnished  gambling 
saloon,  whose  gilded  mirrors  reflected  the 
eager  faces  of  the  crowd,  the  Chief  of  Police 
was  giving  his  testimony  in  a  formal  official 
manner,  impressive  only  for  its  relentless 
and  impassive  revelation  of  the  character 
and  antecedents  of  the  proprietress,  The 
house  had  been  long  under  the  espionage  of 
the  police;  Madame  le  Blanc  had  a  dozen 
aliases;  she  was  "wanted"  in  New  Orleans, 
in  New  York,  in  Havana!  It  was  in  her 
house  that  Dyer,  the  bank  clerk,  committed 
suicide;  it  was  there  that  Colonel  Hooley 


HOW  BEUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE"      209 

was  set  upon  by  her  bully,  O'Ryan;  it  was 
she  —  Kane  heard  with  reddening  cheeks 
—  who  defied  the  police  with  riotous  conduct 
at  a.  fete  two  months  ago.  As  he  coolly  re- 
cited the  counts  of  this  shameful  indictment, 
Kane  looked  eagerly  around  for  Allen, 
whom  he  knew  had  been  arrested  as  a  wit- 
ness. How  would  he  take  this  terrible  dis- 
closure? He  was  sitting  with  the  others, 
his  arm  thrown  over  the  back  of  his  chair, 
and  his  good-humored  face  turned  towards 
the  woman,  in  his  old  confidential  attitude. 
She,  gorgeously  dressed,  painted,  but  un- 
blushing, was  cool,  collected,  and  cynical. 

The  Coroner  next  called  the  only  witness 
of  the  actual  tragedy,  "Reuben  Allen." 
The  man  did  not  move  nor  change  his  posi- 
tion. The  summons  was  repeated ;  a  police- 
man touched  him  on  the  shoulder.  There 
was  a  pause,  and  the  officer  announced: 
"He  has  fainted,  your  Honor!  " 

"Is  there  a  physician  present?"  asked 
the  Coroner. 

Sparlow  edged  his  way  quickly  to  the 
front.  "I  'm  a  medical  man,"  he  said  to 
the  Coroner,  as  he  passed  quickly  to  the 
still,  upright,  immovable  figure  and  knelt 
beside  it  with  his  head  upon  his  heart. 


210      HOW  REUBEN  ALLEN  "SAW  LIFE" 

There  was  an  awed  silence  as,  after  a  pause, 
he  rose  slowly  to  his  feet. 

"The  witness  is  a  patient,  your  Honor, 
whom  I  examined  some  weeks  ago  and 
found  suffering  from  valvular  disease  of 
the  heart.  He  is  dead." 


THREE  VAGABONDS  OF 
TRINIDAD 

"On!  it 's  you,  is  it?"  said  the  Editor. 

The  Chinese  boy  to  whom  the  colloquial- 
ism was  addressed  answered  literally,  after 
his  habit :  — 

"Allee  same  Li  Tee;  me  no  changee. 
Me  no  ollee  China  boy." 

"That 's  so,"  said  the  Editor  with  an  air 
of  conviction.  "I  don't  suppose  there 's 
another  imp  like  you  in  all  Trinidad  County. 
Well,  next  time  don't  scratch  outside  there 
like  a  gopher,  but  come  in." 

"Lass  time,"  suggested  Li  Tee  blandly, 
"me  tap  tappee.  You  no  like  tap  tappee. 
You  say,  alle  same  dam  woodpeckel." 

It  was  quite  true  —  the  highly  sylvan 
surroundings  of  the  Trinidad  "Sentinel" 
office  —  a  little  clearing  in  a  pine  forest  — 
and  its  attendant  fauna,  made  these  signals 
confusing.  An  accurate  imitation  of  a 
woodpecker  was  also  one  of  Li  Tee's  accom- 
plishments. 

The  Editor  without  replying  finished  the 


212      THREE    VAGABONDS   OF   TRINIDAD 

note  he  was  writing;  at  which  Li  Tee,  as 
if  struck  by  some  coincident  recollection, 
lifted  up  his  long  sleeve,  which  served  him 
as  a  pocket,  and  carelessly  shook  out  a  letter 
on  the  table  like  a  conjuring  trick.  The 
Editor,  with  a  reproachful  glance  at  him, 
opened  it.  It  was  only  the  ordinary  request 
of  an  agricultural  subscriber  —  one  Johnson 
—  that  the  Editor  would  "notice"  a  giant 
radish  grown  by  the  subscriber  and  sent  by 
the  bearer. 

"Where's  the  radish,  Li  Tee?"  said 
the  Editor  suspiciously. 

"No  hab  got.     Ask  Mellikan  boy." 

"What?" 

Here  Li  Tee  condescended  to  explain 
that  on  passing  the  schoolhouse  he  had  been 
set  upon  by  the  schoolboys,  and  that  in  the 
struggle  the  big  radish  —  being,  like  most 
such  monstrosities  of  the  quick  Californian 
soil,  merely  a  mass  of  organized  water  — 
was  "mashed  "  over  the  head  of  some  of  his 
assailants.  The  Editor,  painfully  aware  of 
these  regular  persecutions  of  his  errand 
boy,  and  perhaps  realizing  that  a  radish 
which  could  not  be  used  as  a  bludgeon  was 
not  of  a  sustaining  nature,  forebore  any 
reproof.  "  But  I  cannot  notice  what  I  have 


THREE    VAGABONDS   OF   TRINIDAD      213 

n't  seen,  Li  Tee,"  he  said  good-humor- 
edly. 

"S'pose  you  lie  —  allee  same  as  John- 
son," suggested  Li  with  equal  cheerfulness. 
"He  foolee  you  with  lotten  stuff  —  you 
foolee  Mellikan  man,  allee  same." 

The  Editor  preserved  a  dignified  silence 
until  he  had  addressed  his  letter.  "Take 
this  to  Mrs.  Martin,"  he  said,  handing  it 
to  the  boy;  "and  mind  you  keep  clear  of 
the  schoolhouse.  Don't  go  by  the  Flat 
either  if  the  men  are  at  work,  and  don't, 
if  you  value  your  skin,  pass  Flanigan's 
shanty,  where  you  set  off  those  firecrackers 
and  nearly  burnt  him  out  the  other  day. 
Look  out  for  Barker's  dog  at  the  crossing, 
and  keep  off  the  main  road  if  the  tunnel 
men  are  coming  over  the  hill."  Then  re- 
membering that  he  had  virtually  closed  all 
the  ordinary  approaches  to  Mrs.  Martin's 
house,  he  added,  "Better  go  round  by  the 
woods,  where  you  won't  meet  any  one." 

The  boy  darted  off  through  the  open 
door,  and  the  Editor  stood  for  a  moment 
looking  regretfully  after  him.  He  liked 
his  little  protege  ever  since  that  unfortunate 
child  —  a  waif  from  a  Chinese  wash-house 
—  was  impounded  by  some  indignant  miners 


214      THREE    VAGABONDS   OF  TRINIDAD 

for  bringing  home  a  highly  imperfect  and 
insufficient  washing,  and  kept  as  hostage 
for  a  more  proper  return  of  the  garments. 
Unfortunately,  another  gang  of  miners, 
equally  aggrieved,  had  at  the  same  time 
looted  the  wash-house  and  driven  off  the 
occupants,  so  that  Li  Tee  remained  un- 
claimed. For  a  few  weeks  he  became  a 
sporting  appendage  of  the  miners'  camp; 
the  stolid  butt  of  good-humored  practical 
jokes,  the  victim  alternately  of  careless  in- 
difference or  of  extravagant  generosity. 
He  received  kicks  and  half-dollars  intermit- 
tently, and  pocketed  both  with  stoical  forti- 
tude. But  under  this  treatment  he  pre- 
sently lost  the  docility  and  frugality  which 
was  part  of  his  inheritance,  and  began  to 
put  his  small  wits  against  his  tormentors, 
until  they  grew  tired  of  their  own  mischief 
and  his.  But  they  knew  not  what  to  do 
with  him.  His  pretty  nankeen -yellow  skin 
debarred  him  from  the  white  "public 
school,"  while,  although  as  a  heathen  he 
might  have  reasonably  claimed  attention 
from  the  Sabbath-school,  the  parents  who 
cheerfully  gave  their  contributions  to  the 
heathen  abroad,  objected  to  him  as  a  com- 
panion of  their  children  in  the  church  at 


THREE    VAGABONDS    OF    TRINIDAD      215 

home.  At  this  juncture  the  Editor  offered 
to  take  him  into  his  printing  office  as  a 
"devil."  For  a  while  he  seemed  to  be  en- 
deavoring, in  his  old  literal  way,  to  act  up 
to  that  title.  He  inked  everything  but  the 
press.  He  scratched  Chinese  characters  of 
an  abusive  import  on  "leads,"  printed  them, 
and  stuck  them  about  the  office;  he  put 
"punk"  in  the  foreman's  pipe,  and  had 
been  seen  to  swallow  small  type  merely  as 
a  diabolical  recreation.  As  a  messenger 
he  was  fleet  of  foot,  but  uncertain  of  deliv- 
ery. Some  time  previously  the  Editor  had 
enlisted  the  sympathies  of  Mrs.  Martin,  the 
good-natured  wife  of  a  farmer,  to  take  him 
in  her  household  on  trial,  but  on  the  third 
day  Li  Tee  had  run  away.  Yet  the  Editor 
had  not  despaired,  and  it  was  to  urge  her 
to  a  second  attempt  that  he  dispatched  that 
letter. 

He  was  still  gazing  abstractedly  into  the 
depths  of  the  wood  when  he  was  conscious 
of  a  slight  movement  —  but  no  sound  —  in 
a  clump  of  hazel  near  him,  and  a  stealthy 
figure  glided  from  it.  He  at  once  recog- 
nized it  as  "Jim,"  a  well-known  drunken 
Indian  vagrant  of  the  settlement  —  tied  to 
its  civilization  by  the  single  link  of  "fire 


216      THREE    VAGABONDS   OF   TRINIDAD 

water,"  for  which  he  forsook  equally  the 
Reservation  where  it  was  forbidden  and  his 
own  camps  where  it  was  unknown.  Uncon- 
scious of  his  silent  observer,  he  dropped 
upon  all  fours,  with  his  ear  and  nose  alter- 
nately to  the  ground  like  some  tracking 
animal.  Then  having  satisfied  himself,  he 
rose,  and  bending  forward  in  a  dogged  trot, 
made  a  straight  line  for  the  woods.  He 
was  followed  a  few  seconds  later  by  his  dog 
—  a  slinking,  rough,  wolf -like  brute,  whose 
superior  instinct,  however,  made  him  detect 
the  silent  presence  of  some  alien  humanity 
in  the  person  of  the  Editor,  and  to  recog- 
nize it  with  a  yelp  of  habit,  anticipatory  of 
the  stone  that  he  knew  was  always  thrown 
at  him. 

"That's  cute,"  said  a  voice,  "but  it's 
just  what  I  expected  all  along." 

The  Editor  turned  quickly.  His  fore- 
man was  standing  behind  him,  and  had  evi- 
dently noticed  the  whole  incident. 

"It's  what  I  allus  said,"  continued  the 
man.  "That  boy  and  that  In j in  are  thick 
as  thieves.  Ye  can't  see  one  without  the 
other  —  and  they've  got  their  little  tricks 
and  signals  by  which  they  follow  each  other. 
T'  other  day  when  you  was  kalkilatin'  Li 


THREE    VAGABONDS   OF  TRINIDAD      217 

Tee  was  doin'  your  errands  I  tracked  him 
out  on  the  marsh,  just  by  followin'  that 
ornery,  pizenous  dog  o'  Jim's.  There  was 
the  whole  caboodle  of  'em  —  including  Jim 
—  campin'  out,  and  eatin'  raw  fish  that 
Jim  had  ketched,  and  green  stuff  they  had 
both  sneaked  outer  Johnson's  garden.  Mrs. 
Martin  may  take  him,  but  she  won't  keep 
him  long  while  Jim  's  round.  What  makes 
Li  f oiler  that  blamed  old  Injin  soaker,  and 
what  makes  Jim,  who,  at  least,  is  a  'Meri- 
can,  take  up  with  a  furrin'  heathen,  just 
gets  me." 

The  Editor  did  not  reply.  He  had  heard 
something  of  this  before.  Yet,  after  all, 
why  should  not  these  equal  outcasts  of  civi- 
lization cling  together! 

Li  Tee's  stay  with  Mrs.  Martin  was 
brief.  His  departure  was  hastened  by  an 
untoward  event  —  apparently  ushered  in,  as 
in  the  case  of  other  great  calamities,  by  a 
mysterious  portent  in  the  sky.  One  morn- 
ing an  extraordinary  bird  of  enormous  di- 
mensions was  seen  approaching  from  the 
horizon,  and  eventually  began  to  hover  over 
the  devoted  town.  Careful  scrutiny  of  this 
ominous  fowl,  however,  revealed  the  fact 


218      THREE    VAGABONDS   OF   TRINIDAD 

that  it  was  a  monstrous  Chinese  kite,  in  the 
shape  of  a  flying  dragon.  The  spectacle 
imparted  considerable  liveliness  to  the  com- 
munity, which,  however,  presently  changed 
to  some  concern  and  indignation.  It  ap- 
peared that  the  kite  was  secretly  constructed 
by  Li  Tee  in  a  secluded  part  of  Mrs.  Mar- 
tin's clearing,  but  when  it  was  first  tried 
by  him  he  found  that  through  some  error 
of  design  it  required  a  tail  of  unusual  pro- 
portions. This  he  hurriedly  supplied  by 
the  first  means  he  found  —  Mrs.  Martin's 
clothes-line,  with  part  of  the  weekly  wash 
depending  from  it.  This  fact  was  not  at 
first  noticed  by  the  ordinary  sightseer,  al- 
though the  tail  seemed  peculiar  —  yet,  per- 
haps, not  more  peculiar  than  a  dragon's  tail 
ought  to  be.  But  when  the  actual  theft 
was  discovered  and  reported  through  the 
town,  a  vivacious  interest  was  created,  and 
spy -glasses  were  used  to  identify  the  various 
articles  of  apparel  still  hanging  on  that 
ravished  clothes-line.  These  garments,  in 
the  course  of  their  slow  disengagement  from 
the  clothes-pins  through  the  gyrations  of  the 
kite,  impartially  distributed  themselves  over 
the  town  —  one  of  Mrs.  Martin's  stockings 
falling  upon  the  veranda  of  the  Polka  Saloon, 


THREE    VAGABONDS   OF  TRINIDAD      219 

and  the  other  being  afterwards  discovered 
on  the  belfry  of  the  First  Methodist  Church 

—  to  the  scandal  of  the  congregation.     It 
would  have  been  well  if   the  result  of   Li 
Tee's  invention  had  ended  here.     Alas!  the 
kite-flyer  and  his  accomplice,  "Injin  Jim," 
were  tracked  by  means  of  the  kite's  tell-tale 
cord  to  a  lonely  part  of  the  marsh  and  rudely 
dispossessed  of  their  charge  by  Deacon  Horn- 
blower   and   a   constable.      Unfortunately, 
the   captors   overlooked    the  fact   that   the 
kite-flyers  had  taken  the  precaution  of  mak- 
ing a  "half -turn"  of  the  stout  cord  around 
a  log  to  ease  the  tremendous  pull  of  the  kite 

—  whose  power  the  captors  had  not  reckoned 
upon  —  and  the  Deacon  incautiously  substi- 
tuted his  own  body  for  the  log.     A  singu- 
lar spectacle  is  said  to  have  then  presented 
itself  to  the  on-lookers.     The  Deacon  was 
seen   to   be   running   wildly  by   leaps   and 
bounds  over  the  marsh  after  the  kite,  closely 
followed  by  the  constable  in  equally  wild 
efforts  to    restrain  him  by  tugging  at   the 
end  of  the  line.     The   extraordinary   race 
continued  to  the  town  until  the  constable 
fell,    losing    his    hold   of    the    line.     This 
seemed  to  impart  a  singular  specific  levity 
to  the  Deacon,  who,  to  the  astonishment  of 


220      THREE    VAGABONDS   OF   TRINIDAD 

everybody,  incontinently  sailed  up  into  a 
tree!  When  he  was  succored  and  cut  down 
from  the  demoniac  kite,  he  was  found  to 
have  sustained  a  dislocation  of  the  shoulder, 
and  the  constable  was  severely  shaken.  By 
that  one  infelicitous  stroke  the  two  outcasts 
made  an  enemy  of  the  Law  and  the  Gospel 
as  represented  in  Trinidad  County.  It  is 
to  be  feared  also  that  the  ordinary  emotional 
instinct  of  a  frontier  community,  to  which 
they  were  now  simply  abandoned,  was  as 
little  to  be  trusted.  In  this  dilemma  they 
disappeared  from  the  town  the  next  day 
—  no  one  knew  where.  A  pale  blue  smoke 
rising  from  a  lonely  island  in  the  bay  for 
some  days  afterwards  suggested  their  pos- 
sible refuge.  But  nobody  greatly  cared. 
The  sympathetic  mediation  of  the  Editor 
was  characteristically  opposed  by  Mr.  Par- 
kin Skinner,  a  prominent  citizen :  — 

"It 's  all  very  well  for  you  to  talk  senti- 
ment about  niggers,  Chinamen,  and  Injins, 
and  you  fellers  can  laugh  about  the  Deacon 
being  snatched  up  to  heaven  like  Elijah  in 
that  blamed  Chinese  chariot  of  a  kite  —  but 
I  kin  tell  you,  gentlemen,  that  this  is  a 
white  man's  country!  Yes,  sir,  you  can't 
get  over  it !  The  nigger  of  every  descrip- 


THREE    VAGABONDS   OF  TRINIDAD      221 

tion  —  yeller,  brown,  or  black,  call  him 
'  Chinese,'  '  Injin,'  or  '  Kanaka,'  or  what 
you  like  —  hez  to  clar  off  of  God's  footstool 
when  the  Anglo-Saxon  gets  started!  It 
stands  to  reason  that  they  can't  live  along- 
side o'  printin'  presses,  M'Corniick's  reap- 
ers, and  the  Bible!  Yes,  sir!  the  Bible; 
and  Deacon  Hornblower  kin  prove  it  to 
you.  It 's  our  manifest  destiny  to  clar 
them  out  —  that  's  what  we  was  put  here 
for  —  and  it 's  just  the  work  we  've  got  to 
do!" 

I  have  ventured  to  quote  Mr.  Skinner's 
stirring  remarks  to  show  that  probably  Jim 
and  Li  Tee  ran  away  only  in  anticipation 
of  a  possible  lynching,  and  to  prove  that 
advanced  sentiments  of  this  high  and  en- 
nobling nature  really  obtained  forty  years 
ago  in  an  ordinary  American  frontier  town 
which  did  not  then  dream  of  Expansion  and 
Empire ! 

Howbeit,  Mr.  Skinner  did  not  make  al- 
lowance for  mere  human  nature.  One 
morning  Master  Bob  Skinner,  his  son,  aged 
twelve,  evaded  the  schoolhouse,  and  started 
in  an  old  Indian  "dug-out"  to  invade  the 
island  of  the  miserable  refugees.  His  pur- 
pose was  not  clearly  defined  to  himself,  but 


222      THREE    VAGABONDS   OF  TRINIDAD 

was  to  be  modified  by  circumstances.  He 
would  either  capture  Li  Tee  and  Jim,  or 
join  them  in  their  lawless  existence.  He 
had  prepared  himself  for  either  event  by 
surreptitiously  borrowing  his  father's  gun. 
He  also  carried  victuals,  having  heard  that 
Jim  ate  grasshoppers  and  Li  Tee  rats,  and 
misdoubting  his  own  capacity  for  either 
diet.  He  paddled  slowly,  well  in  shore,  to 
be  secure  from  observation  at  home,  and 
then  struck  out  boldly  in  his  leaky  canoe 
for  the  island  —  a  tufted,  tussocky  shred 
of  the  marshy  promontory  torn  off  in  some 
tidal  storm.  It  was  a  lovely  day,  the  bay 
being  barely  ruffled  by  the  afternoon 
"trades;"  but  as  he  neared  the  island  he 
came  upon  the  swell  from  the  bar  and  the 
thunders  of  the  distant  Pacific,  and  grew 
a  little  frightened.  The  canoe,  losing  way, 
fell  into  the  trough  of  the  swell,  shipping 
salt  water,  still  more  alarming  to  the  prairie- 
bred  boy.  Forgetting  his  plan  of  a  stealthy 
invasion,  he  shouted  lustily  as  the  helpless 
and  water-logged  boat  began  to  drift  past 
the  island ;  at  which  a  lithe  figure  emerged 
from  the  reeds,  threw  off  a  tattered  blanket, 
and  slipped  noiselessly,  like  some  animal, 
into  the  water.  It  was  Jim,  who,  half 


THREE    VAGABONDS   OF  TRINIDAD      223 

wading,  half  swimming,  brought  the  canoe 
and  boy  ashore.  Master  Skinner  at  once 
gave  up  the  idea  of  invasion,  and  concluded 
to  join  the  refugees. 

This  was  easy  in  his  defenceless  state, 
and  his  manifest  delight  in  their  rude  en- 
campment and  gypsy  life,  although  he  had 
been  one  of  Li  Tee's  oppressors  in  the  past. 
But  that  stolid  pagan  had  a  philosophical 
indifference  which  might  have  passed  for 
Christian  forgiveness,  and  Jim's  native 
reticence  seemed  like  assent.  And,  possi- 
bly, in  the  minds  of  these  two  vagabonds 
there  might  have  been  a  natural  sympathy 
for  this  other  truant  from  civilization,  and 
some  delicate  flattery  in  the  fact  that  Mas- 
ter Skinner  was  not  driven  out,  but  came 
of  his  own  accord.  Howbeit,  they  fished 
together,  gathered  cranberries  on  the  marsh, 
shot  a  wild  duck  and  two  plovers,  and  when 
Master  Skinner  assisted  in  the  cooking  of 
their  fish  in  a  conical  basket  sunk  in  the 
ground,  filled  with  water,  heated  by  rolling 
red-hot  stones  from  their  drift-wood  fire 
into  the  buried  basket,  the  boy's  felicity 
was  supreme.  And  what  an  afternoon! 
To  lie,  after  this  feast,  on  their  bellies  in 
the  grass,  replete  like  animals,  hidden  from 


224      THREE    VAGABONDS   OF  TRINIDAD 

everything  but  the  sunshine  above  them ;  so 
quiet  that  gray  clouds  of  sandpipers  settled 
fearlessly  around  them,  and  a  shining  brown 
muskrat  slipped  from  the  ooze  within  a  few 
feet  of  their  faces  —  was  to  feel  themselves 
a  part  of  the  wild  life  in  earth  and  sky. 
Not  that  their  own  predatory  instincts  were 
hushed  by  this  divine  peace;  that  intermit- 
ting black  spot  upon  the  water,  declared  by 
the  Indian  to  be  a  seal,  the  stealthy  glide 
of  a  yellow  fox  in  the  ambush  of  a  callow 
brood  of  mallards,  the  momentary  straying 
of  an  elk  from  the  upland  upon  the  borders 
of  the  marsh,  awoke  their  tingling  nerves 
to  the  happy  but  fruitless  chase.  And 
when  night  came,  too  soon,  and  they  pigged 
together  around  the  warm  ashes  of  their 
camp-fire,  under  the  low  lodge  poles  of 
their  wigwam  of  dried  mud,  reeds,  and 
driftwood,  with  the  combined  odors  of  fish, 
wood-smoke,  and  the  warm  salt  breath  of 
the  marsh  in  their  nostrils,  they  slept  con- 
tentedly. The  distant  lights  of  the  settle- 
ment went  out  one  by  one,  the  stars  came 
out,  very  large  and  very  silent,  to  take 
their  places.  The  barking  of  a  dog  on  the 
nearest  point  was  followed  by  another  far- 
ther inland.  But  Jim's  dog,  curled  at  the 


THREE    VAGABONDS    OF   TRINIDAD      226 

feet  of  his  master,  did  not  reply.  What 
had  he  to  do  with  civilization  ? 

The  morning  brought  some  fear  of  conse- 
quences to  Master  Skinner,  but  no  abate- 
ment of  his  resolve  not  to  return.  But 
here  he  was  oddly  combated  by  Li  Tee. 
"S'pose  you  go  back  allee  same.  You 
tellee  f  am 'lee  canoe  go  topside  down  —  you 
plentee  swimee  to  bush.  Allee  night  in 
bush.  Housee  big  way  off  —  how  can  get? 
Sabe?" 

"And  I'll  leave  the  gun,  and  tell  Dad 
that  when  the  canoe  upset  the  gun  got 
drowned,"  said  the  boy  eagerly. 

Li  Tee  nodded. 

"And  come  again  Saturday,  and  bring 
more  powder  and  shot  and  a  bottle  for 
Jim,"  said  Master  Skinner  excitedly. 

"Good!  "  grunted  the  Indian. 

Then  they  ferried  the  boy  over  to  the 
peninsula,  and  set  him  on  a  trail  across  the 
marshes,  known  only  to  themselves,  which 
would  bring  him  home.  And  when  the 
Editor  the  next  morning  chronicled  among 
his  news,  "  Adrift  on  the  Bay  —  A  School- 
boy's Miraculous  Escape,"  he  knew  as  little 
what  part  his  missing  Chinese  errand  boy 
had  taken  in  it  as  the  rest  of  his  readers. 


226      THREE    VAGABONDS   OF   TRINIDAD 

Meantime  the  two  outcasts  returned  to 
their  island  camp.  It  may  have  occurred 
to  them  that  a  little  of  the  sunlight  had 
gone  from  it  with  Bob;  for  they  were  in 
a  dull,  stupid  way  fascinated  by  the  little 
white  tyrant  who  had  broken  bread  with 
them.  He  had  been  delightfully  selfish 
and  frankly  brutal  to  them,  as  only  a 
schoolboy  could  be,  with  the  addition  of  the 
consciousness  of  his  superior  race.  Yet 
they  each  longed  for  his  return,  although 
he  was  seldom  mentioned  in  their  scanty 
conversation  —  carried  on  in  monosyllables, 
each  in  his  own  language,  or  with  some 
common  English  word,  or  more  often  re- 
stricted solely  to  signs.  By  a  delicate  flat- 
tery, when  they  did  speak  of  him  it  was  in 
what  they  considered  to  be  his  own  lan- 
guage. 

"Boston  boy,  plenty  like  catchee  Aim," 
Jim  would  say,  pointing  to  a  distant  swan. 
Or  Li  Tee,  hunting  a  striped  water  snake 
from  the  reeds,  would  utter  stolidly,  "Meli- 
kan  boy  no  likee  snake."  Yet  the  next  two 
days  brought  some  trouble  and  physical 
discomfort  to  them.  Bob  had  consumed, 
or  wasted,  all  their  provisions  —  and,  still 
more  unfortunately,  his  righteous  visit,  his 


THREE    VAGABONDS   OF   TRINIDAD      227 

gun,  and  his  superabundant  animal  spirits 
had  frightened  away  the  game,  which  their 
habitual  quiet  and  taciturnity  had  beguiled 
into  trustfulness.  They  were  half  starved, 
but  they  did  not  blame  him.  It  would 
come  all  right  when  he  returned.  They 
counted  the  days,  Jim  with  secret  notches 
on  the  long  pole,  Li  Tee  with  a  string  of 
copper  "cash"  he  always  kept  with  him. 
The  eventful  day  came  at  last,  —  a  warm 
autumn  day,  patched  with  inland  fog  like 
blue  smoke  and  smooth,  tranquil,  open  sur- 
faces of  wood  and  sea ;  but  to  their  waiting, 
confident  eyes  the  boy  came  not  out  of  either. 
They  kept  a  stolid  silence  all  that  day  until 
night  fell,  when  Jim  said,  "Mebbe  Boston 
boy  go  dead."  Li  Tee  nodded.  It  did  not 
seem  possible  to  these  two  heathens  that 
anything  else  could  prevent  the  Christian 
child  from  keeping  his  word. 

After  that,  by  the  aid  of  the  canoe,  they 
went  much  on  the  marsh,  hunting  apart, 
but  often  meeting  on  the  trail  which  Bob 
had  taken,  with  grunts  of  mutual  surprise. 
These  suppressed  feelings,  never  made 
known  by  word  or  gesture,  at  last  must 
have  found  vicarious  outlet  in  the  taciturn 
dog,  who  so  far  forgot  his  usual  discretion 


228      THREE    VAGABONDS    OF  TRINIDAD 

as  to  once  or  twice  seat  himself  on  the 
water's  edge  and  indulge  in  a  fit  of  howl- 
ing. It  had  been  a  custom  of  Jim's  on 
certain  days  to  retire  to  some  secluded 
place,  where,  folded  in  his  blanket,  with 
his  back  against  a  tree,  he  remained  motion- 
less for  hours.  In  the  settlement  this  had 
been  usually  referred  to  the  after  effects  of 
drink,  known  as  the  "horrors,"  but  Jim 
had  explained  it  by  saying  it  was  "when 
his  heart  was  bad."  And  now  it  seemed, 
by  these  gloomy  abstractions,  that  "his 
heart  was  bad  "  very  often.  And  then  the 
long  withheld  rains  came  one  night  on  the 
wings  of  a  fierce  southwester,  beating  down 
their  frail  lodge  and  scattering  it  abroad, 
quenching  their  camp-fire,  and  rolling  up 
the  bay  until  it  invaded  their  reedy  island 
and  hissed  in  their  ears.  It  drove  the  game 
from  Jim's  gun;  it  tore  the  net  and  scat- 
tered the  bait  of  Li  Tee,  the  fisherman. 
Cold  and  half  starved  in  heart  and  body, 
but  more  dogged  and  silent  than  ever,  they 
crept  out  in  their  canoe  into  the  storm- 
tossed  bay,  barely  escaping  with  their  mis- 
erable lives  to  the  marshy  peninsula.  Here, 
on  their  enemy's  ground,  skulking  in  the 
rushes,  or  lying  close  behind  tussocks,  they 


THREE    VAGABONDS    OF   TRINIDAD      229 

at  last  reached  the  fringe  of  forest  below 
the  settlement.  Here,  too,  sorely  pressed 
by  hunger,  and  doggedly  reckless  of  conse- 
quences, they  forgot  their  caution,  and  a 
flight  of  teal  fell  to  Jim's  gun  on  the  very 
outskirts  of  the  settlement. 

It  was  a  fatal  shot,  whose  echoes  awoke 
the  forces  of  civilization  against  them.  For 
it  was  heard  by  a  logger  in  his  hut  near  the 
marsh,  who,  looking  out,  had  seen  Jim 
pass.  A  careless,  good-natured  frontiers- 
man, he  might  have  kept  the  outcasts'  mere 
presence  to  himself;  but  there  was  that 
damning  shot!  An  Indian  with  a  gun! 
That  weapon,  contraband  of  law,  with  dire 
fines  and  penalties  to  whoso  sold  or  gave  it 
to  him !  A  thing  to  be  looked  into  —  some 
one  to  be  punished!  An  Indian  with  a 
weapon  that  made  him  the  equal  of  the 
white!  Who  was  safe?  He  hurried  to 
town  to  lay  his  information  before  the  con- 
stable, but,  meeting  Mr.  Skinner,  imparted 
the  news  to  him.  The  latter  pooh-poohed 
the  constable,  who  he  alleged  had  not  yet 
discovered  the  whereabouts  of  Jim,  and 
suggested  that  a  few  armed  citizens  should 
make  the  chase  themselves.  The  fact  was 
that  Mr.  Skinner,  never  quite  satisfied  in 


230      THREE    VAGABONDS   OF  TRINIDAD 

his  mind  with  his  son's  account  of  the  loss  of 
the  gun,  had  put  two  and  two  together,  and 
was  by  no  means  inclined  to  have  his  own 
gun  possibly  identified  by  the  legal  author- 
ity. Moreover,  he  went  home  and  at  once 
attacked  Master  Bob  with  such  vigor  and 
so  highly  colored  a  description  of  the  crime 
he  had  committed,  and  the  penalties  at- 
tached to  it,  that  Bob  confessed.  More 
than  that,  I  grieve  to  say  that  Bob  lied. 
The  Indian  had  "stoled  his  gun,"  and 
threatened  his  life  if  he  divulged  the  theft. 
He  told  how  he  was  ruthlessly  put  ashore, 
and  compelled  to  take  a  trail  only  known  to 
them  to  reach  his  home.  In  two  hours  it 
was  reported  throughout  the  settlement  that 
the  infamous  Jim  had  added  robbery  with 
violence  to  his  illegal  possession  of  the 
weapon.  The  secret  of  the  island  and  the 
trail  over  the  marsh  was  told  only  to  a  few. 
Meantime  it  had  fared  hard  with  the 
fugitives.  Their  nearness  to  the  settlement 
prevented  them  from  lighting  a  fire,  which 
might  have  revealed  their  hiding-place,  and 
they  crept  together,  shivering  all  night  in 
a  clump  of  hazel.  Scared  thence  by  passing 
but  unsuspecting  wayfarers  wandering  off 
the  trail,  they  lay  part  of  the  next  day  and 


THREE    VAGABONDS    OF   TRINIDAD      231 

night  amid  some  tussocks  of  salt  grass, 
blown  on  by  the  cold  sea-breeze;  chilled, 
but  securely  hidden  from  sight.  Indeed, 
thanks  to  some  mysterious  power  they  had 
of  utter  immobility,  it  was  wonderful  how 
they  could  efface  themselves,  through  quiet 
and  the  simplest  environment.  The  lee 
side  of  a  straggling  vine  in  the  meadow,  or 
even  the  thin  ridge  of  cast-up  drift  on  the 
shore,  behind  which  they  would  lie  for  hours 
motionless,  was  a  sufficient  barrier  against 
prying  eyes.  In  this  occupation  they  no 
longer  talked  together,  but  followed  each 
other  with  the  blind  instinct  of  animals  — 
yet  always  unerringly,  as  if  conscious  of 
each  other's  plans.  Strangely  enough,  it 
was  the  real  animal  alone  —  their  nameless 
dog  —  who  now  betrayed  impatience  and  a 
certain  human  infirmity  of  temper.  The 
concealment  they  were  resigned  to,  the  suf- 
ferings they  mutely  accepted,  he  alone  re- 
sented! When  certain  scents  or  sounds, 
imperceptible  to  their  senses,  were  blown 
across  their  path,  he  would,  with  bristling 
back,  snarl  himself  into  guttural  and  stran- 
gulated fury.  Yet,  in  their  apathy,  even 
this  would  have  passed  them  unnoticed,  but 
that  on  the  second  night  he  disappeared 


232      THREE    VAGABONDS   OF  TRINIDAD 

suddenly,  returning  after  two  hours'  ab- 
sence with  bloody  jaws  —  replete,  but  still 
slinking  and  snappish.  It  was  only  in  the 
morning  that,  creeping  on  their  hands  and 
knees  through  the  stubble,  they  came  upon 
the  torn  and  mangled  carcass  of  a  sheep. 
The  two  men  looked  at  each  other  without 
speaking  —  they  knew  what  this  act  of 
rapine  meant  to  themselves.  It  meant  a 
fresh  hue  and  cry  after  them  —  it  meant 
that  their  starving  companion  had  helped 
to  draw  the  net  closer  round  them.  The 
Indian  grunted,  Li  Tee  smiled  vacantly; 
but  with  their  knives  and  fingers  they  fin- 
ished what  the  dog  had  begun,  and  became 
equally  culpable.  But  that  they  were  hea- 
thens, they  could  not  have  achieved  a  deli- 
cate ethical  responsibility  in  a  more  Chris- 
tian-like way. 

Yet  the  rice-fed  Li  Tee  suffered  most  in 
their  privations.  His  habitual  apathy  in- 
creased with  a  certain  physical  lethargy 
which  Jim  could  not  understand.  When 
they  were  apart  he  sometimes  found  Li  Tee 
stretched  on  his  back  with  an  odd  stare  in 
his  eyes,  and  once,  at  a  distance,  he  thought 
he  saw  a  vague  thin  vapor  drift  from  where 
the  Chinese  boy  was  lying  and  vanish  as  ho 


THREE    VAGABONDS   OF   TRINIDAD      233 

approached.  When  he  tried  to  arouse  him 
there  was  a  weak  drawl  in  his  voice  and  a 
drug-like  odor  in  his  breath.  Jim  dragged 
him  to  a  more  substantial  shelter,  a  thicket 
of  alder.  It  was  dangerously  near  the  fre- 
quented road,  but  a  vague  idea  had  sprung 
up  in  Jim's  now  troubled  mind  that,  equal 
vagabonds  though  they  were,  Li  Tee  had 
more  claims  upon  civilization,  through  those 
of  his  own  race  who  were  permitted  to  live 
among  the  white  men,  and  were  not  hunted 
to  "reservations"  and  confined  there  like 
Jim's  people.  If  Li  Tee  was  "heap  sick," 
other  Chinamen  might  find  and  nurse  him. 
As  for  Li  Tee,  he  had  lately  said,  in  a 
more  lucid  interval:  "Me  go  dead  —  allee 
samee  Mellikan  boy.  You  go  dead  too  — 
allee  samee,"  and  then  lay  down  again  with 
a  glassy  stare  in  his  eyes.  Far  from  being 
frightened  at  this,  Jim  attributed  his  con- 
dition to  some  enchantment  that  Li  Tee 
had  evoked  from  one  of  his  gods  —  just  as 
he  himself  had  seen  "medicine-men"  of  his 
own  tribe  fall  into  strange  trances,  and  was 
glad  that  the  boy  no  longer  suffered.  The 
day  advanced,  and  Li  Tee  still  slept.  Jim 
could  hear  the  church  bells  ringing;  he 
knew  it  was  Sunday  —  the  day  on  which  he 


234      THREE    VAGABONDS    OF   TRINIDAD 

was  hustled  from  the  main  street  by  the 
constable;  the  day  on  which  the  shops  were 
closed,  and  the  drinking  saloons  open  only 
at  the  back  door.  The  day  whereon  no 
man  worked  —  and  for  that  reason,  though 
he  knew  it  not,  the  day  selected  by  the  in- 
genious Mr.  Skinner  and  a  few  friends  as 
especially  fitting  and  convenient  for  a  chase 
of  the  fugitives.  The  bell  brought  no  sug- 
gestion of  this  —  though  the  dog  snapped 
under  his  breath  and  stiffened  his  spine. 
And  then  he  heard  another  sound,  far  off 
and  vague,  yet  one  that  brought  a  flash  into 
his  murky  eye,  that  lit  up  the  heaviness  of 
his  Hebraic  face,  and  even  showed  a  slight 
color  in  his  high  cheek-bones.  He  lay  down 
on  the  ground,  and  listened  with  suspended 
breath.  He  heard  it  now  distinctly.  It 
was  the  Boston  boy  calling,  and  the  word 
he  was  calling  was  "Jim." 

Then  the  fire  dropped  out  of  his  eyes  as 
he  turned  with  his  usual  stolidity  to  where 
Li  Tee  was  lying.  Him  he  shook,  saying 
briefly:  "Boston  boy  come  back!"  But 
there  was  no  reply,  the  dead  body  rolled 
over  inertly  under  his  hand ;  the  head  fell 
back,  and  the  jaw  dropped  under  the 
pinched  yellow  face.  The  Indian  gazed  at 


THREE    VAGABONDS    OF   TRINIDAD      235 

him  slowly,  and  then  gravely  turned  again 
in  the  direction  of  the  voice.  Yet  his  dull 
mind  was  perplexed,  for,  blended  with  that 
voice  were  other  sounds  like  the  tread  of 
clumsily  stealthy  feet.  But  again  the  voice 
called  "Jim!  "  and  raising  his  hands  to  his 
lips  he  gave  a  low  whoop  in  reply.  This 
was  followed  by  silence,  when  suddenly  he 
heard  the  voice  —  the  boy's  voice  —  once 
again,  this  time  very  near  him,  saying 
eagerly :  — 

"There  he  is!" 

Then  the  Indian  knew  all.  His  face, 
however,  did  not  change  as  he  took  up  his 
gun,  and  a  man  stepped  out  of  the  thicket 
into  the  trail :  — 

"Drop  that  gun,  you  d — d  Injin." 

The  Indian  did  not  move. 

"Drop  it,  I  say!" 

The  Indian  remained  erect  and  motion- 
less. 

A  rifle  shot  broke  from  the  thicket.  At 
first  it  seemed  to  have  missed  the  Indian, 
and  the  man  who  had  spoken  cocked  his 
own  rifle.  But  the  next  moment  the  tall 
figure  of  Jim  collapsed  where  he  stood  into 
a  mere  blanketed  heap. 

The  man  who  had  fired  the  shot  walked 


236      THREE    VAGABONDS   OF  TRINIDAD 

towards  the  heap  with  the  easy  air  of  a  con- 
queror. But  suddenly  there  arose  before 
him  an  awful  phantom,  the  incarnation  of 
savagery  —  a  creature  of  blazing  eyeballs, 
flashing  tusks,  and  hot  carnivorous  breath. 
He  had  barely  time  to  cry  out  "A  wolf! " 
before  its  jaws  met  in  his  throat,  and  they 
rolled  together  on  the  ground. 

But  it  was  no  wolf  —  as  a  second  shot 
proved  —  only  Jim's  slinking  dog;  the  only 
one  of  the  outcasts  who  at  that  supreme 
moment  had  gone  back  to  his  original 
nature. 


A  VISION  OF  THE  FOUNTAIN 

MR.  JACKSON  POTTER  halted  before  the 
little  cottage,  half  shop,  half  hostelry,  op- 
posite the  great  gates  of  Domesday  Park, 
where  tickets  of  admission  to  that  venerable 
domain  were  sold.  Here  Mr.  Potter  re- 
vealed his  nationality  as  a  Western  Ameri- 
can, not  only  in  his  accent,  but  in  a  certain 
half-humorous,  half-practical  questioning 
of  the  ticket-seller  —  as  that  quasi-official 
stamped  his  ticket  —  which  was  neverthe- 
less delivered  with  such  unfailing  good- 
humor,  and  such  frank  suggestiveness  of 
the  perfect  equality  of  the  ticket-seller  and 
the  well-dressed  stranger  that,  far  from 
producing  any  irritation,  it  attracted  the 
pleased  attention  not  only  of  the  official, 
but  his  wife  and  daughter  and  a  customer. 
Possibly  the  good  looks  of  the  stranger  had 
something  to  do  with  it.  Jackson  Potter 
was  a  singularly  handsome  young  fellow, 
with  one  of  those  ideal  faces  and  figures 
sometimes  seen  in  Western  frontier  villages, 
attributable  to  no  ancestor,  but  evolved 


238        A    VISION  OF   THE  FOUNTAIN 

possibly  from  novels  and  books  devoured 
by  ancestresses  in  the  long  solitary  winter 
evenings  of  their  lonely  cabins  on  the  fron- 
tier. A  beardless,  classical  head,  covered 
by  short  flocculent  blonde  curls,  poised  on 
a  shapely  neck  and  shoulders,  was  more 
Greek  in  outline  than  suggestive  of  any 
ordinary  American  type.  Finally,  after 
having  thoroughly  amused  his  small  au- 
dience, he  lifted  his  straw  hat  to  the  "la- 
dies," and  lounged  out  across  the  road  to 
the  gateway.  Here  he  paused,  consulting 
his  guide-book,  and  read  aloud:  "St.  John's 
Gateway.  This  massive  structure,  accord- 
ing to  Leland,  was  built  in" — murmured 
—  "never  mind  when;  we  '11  pass  St.  John," 
marked  the  page  with  his  pencil,  and  ten- 
dering his  ticket  to  the  gate-keeper,  heard, 
with  some  satisfaction,  that,  as  there  were 
no  other  visitors  just  then,  and  as  the  cice- 
rone only  accompanied  parties,  he  would  be 
left  to  himself,  and  at  once  plunged  into  a 
by-path. 

It  was  that  loveliest  of  rare  creations  — 
a  hot  summer  day  in  England,  with  all  the 
dampness  of  that  sea-blown  isle  wrung  out 
of  it,  exhaled  in  the  quivering  blue  vault 
overhead,  or  passing  as  dim  wraiths  in  the 


4    VISION   OF   THE   FOUNTAIN       239 

distant  wood,  and  all  the  long-matured 
growth  of  that  great  old  garden  vivified 
and  made  resplendent  by  the  fervid  sun. 
The  ashes  of  dead  and  gone  harvests,  even 
the  dust  of  those  who  had  for  ages  wrought 
in  it,  turned  again  and  again  through  inces- 
sant cultivation,  seemed  to  move  and  live 
once  more  in  that  present  sunshine.  All 
color  appeared  to  be  deepened  and  mel- 
lowed, until  even  the  very  shadows  of  the 
trees  were  as  velvety  as  the  sward  they  fell 
upon.  The  prairie-bred  Potter,  accustomed 
to  the  youthful  caprices  and  extravagances 
of  his  own  virgin  soil,  could  not  help  feel- 
ing the  influence  of  the  ripe  restraints  of 
this. 

As  he  glanced  through  the  leaves  across 
green  sunlit  spaces  to  the  ivy-clad  ruins  of 
Domesday  Abbey,  which  seemed  itself  a 
growth  of  the  very  soil,  he  murmured  to 
himself:  "Things  had  been  made  mighty 
comfortable  for  folks  here,  you  bet!  "  For- 
gotten books  he  had  read  as  a  boy,  scraps 
of  school  histories,  or  rarer  novels,  came 
back  to  him  as  he  walked  along,  and  peo- 
pled the  solitude  about  him  with  their 
heroes. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  unmistakably  hot  — 


240        A    VISION   OF   THE  FOUNTAIN 

a  heat  homelike  in  its  intensity,  yet  of  a 
different  effect,  throwing  him  into  languid 
reverie  rather  than  filling  his  veins  with 
fire.  Secure  in  his  seclusion  in  the  leafy 
chase,  he  took  off  his  jacket  and  rambled 
on  in  his  shirt  sleeves.  Through  the  open- 
ing he  presently  saw  the  abbey  again,  with 
the  restored  wing  where  the  noble  owner 
lived  for  two  or  three  weeks  in  the  year, 
but  now  given  over  to  the  prevailing  soli- 
tude. And  then,  issuing  from  the  chase, 
he  came  upon  a  broad,  moss-grown  terrace. 
Before  him  stretched  a  tangled  and  luxu- 
riant wilderness  of  shrubs  and  flowers, 
darkened  by  cypress  and  cedars  of  Leb- 
anon; its  dim  depths  illuminated  by  daz- 
zling white  statues,  vases,  trellises,  and 
paved  paths,  choked  and  lost  in  the  trailing 
growths  of  years  of  abandonment  and  for- 
getfulness.  He  consulted  his  guide-book 
again.  It  was  the  "old  Italian  garden," 
constructed  under  the  design  of  a  famous 
Italian  gardener  by  the  third  duke ;  but  its 
studied  formality  being,  displeasing  to  his 
successor,  it  was  allowed  to  fall  into  pictur- 
esque decay  and  negligent  profusion,  which 
were  not,  however,  disturbed  by  later  de- 
scendants, —  a  fact  deplored  by  the  artistic 


A    VISION  OF   THE  FOUNTAIN        241 

writer  of  the  guide-book,  who  mournfully 
called  attention  to  the  rare  beauty  of  the 
marble  statues,  urns,  and  fountains,  ruined 
by  neglect,  although  one  or  two  of  the  rarer 
objects  had  been  removed  to  Deep  Dene 
Lodge,  another  seat  of  the  present  duke. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  Mr.  Potter  con- 
ceived at  once  a  humorous  opposition  to  the 
artistic  enthusiasm  of  the  critic,  and,  plun- 
ging into  the  garden,  took  a  mischievous 
delight  in  its  wildness  and  the  victorious 
struggle  of  nature  with  the  formality  of  art. 
At  every  step  through  the  tangled  labyrinth 
he  could  see  where  precision  and  order  had 
been  invaded,  and  even  the  rigid  masonry 
broken  or  upheaved  by  the  rebellious  force. 
Yet  here  and  there  the  two  powers  had  com- 
bined to  offer  an  example  of  beauty  neither 
could  have  effected  alone.  A  passion  vine 
had  overrun  and  enclasped  a  vase  with  a 
perfect  symmetry  no  sculptor  could  have 
achieved.  A  heavy  balustrade  was  made 
ethereal  with  a  delicate  fretwork  of  vegeta- 
tion between  its  balusters  like  lace.  Here, 
however,  the  lap  and  gurgle  of  water  fell 
gratefully  upon  the  ear  of  the  perspiring 
and  thirsty  Mr.  Potter,  and  turned  his  at- 
tention to  more  material  things.  Following 


242        A    VISION  OF  THE  FOUNTAIN 

the  sound,  he  presently  came  upon  an  enor- 
mous oblong  marble  basin  containing  three 
time-worn  fountains  with  grouped  figures. 
The  pipes  were  empty,  silent,  and  choked 
with  reeds  and  water  plants,  but  the  great 
basin  itself  was  filled  with  water  from  some 
invisible  source. 

A  terraced  walk  occupied  one  side  of  the 
long  parallelogram;  at  intervals  and  along 
the  opposite  bank,  half  shadowed  by  wil- 
lows, tinted  marble  figures  of  tritons,  fauns, 
and  dryads  arose  half  hidden  in  the  reeds. 
They  were  more  or  less  mutilated  by  time, 
and  here  and  there  only  the  empty,  moss- 
covered  plinths  that  had  once  supported 
them  could  be  seen.  But  they  were  so  life- 
like in  their  subdued  color  in  the  shade  that 
he  was  for  a  moment  startled. 

The  water  looked  deliciously  cool.  An 
audacious  thought  struck  him.  He  was 
alone,  and  the  place  was  a  secluded  one. 
He  knew  there  were  no  other  visitors;  the 
marble  basin  was  quite  hidden  from  the  rest 
of  the  garden,  and  approached  only  from 
the  path  by  which  he  had'come,  and  whose 
entire  view  he  commanded.  He  quietly 
and  deliberately  undressed  himself  under 
the  willows,  and  unhesitatingly  plunged  into 


A    VISION   OF   THE  FOUNTAIN       243 

the  basin.  The  water  was  four  or  five  feet 
deep,  and  its  extreme  length  afforded  an 
excellent  swimming  bath,  despite  the  water- 
lilies  and  a  few  aquatic  plants  that  mottled 
its  clear  surface,  or  the  sedge  that  clung  to 
the  bases  of  the  statues.  He  disported  for 
some  moments  in  the  delicious  element,  and 
then  seated  himself  upou  one  of  the  half- 
submerged  plinths,  almost  hidden  by  reeds, 
that  had  once  upheld  a  river  god.  Here, 
lazily  resting  himself  upon  his  elbow,  half 
his  body  still  below  the  water,  his  quick  ear 
was  suddenly  startled  by  a  rustling  noise 
and  the  sound  of  footsteps.  For  a  moment 
he  was  inclined  to  doubt  his  senses;  he 
could  see  only  the  empty  path  before  him 
and  the  deserted  terrace.  But  the  sound 
became  more  distinct,  and  to  his  great  un- 
easiness appeared  to  come  from  the  other 
side  of  the  fringe  of  willows,  where  there 
was  undoubtedly  a  path  to  the  fountain 
which  he  had  overlooked.  His  clothes  were 
under  those  willows,  but  he  was  at  least 
twenty  yards  from  the  bank  and  an  equal 
distance  from  the  terrace.  He  was  about 
to  slip  beneath  the  water  when,  to  his 
crowning  horror,  before  he  could  do  so,  a 
young  girl  slowly  appeared  from  the  hidden 


244         A    VISION   OF   THE   FOUNTAIN 

willow  path  full  upon  the  terrace.  She  was 
walking  leisurely  with  a  parasol  over  her 
head  and  a  book  in  her  hand.  Even  in  his 
intense  consternation  her  whole  figure  —  a 
charming  one  in  its  white  dress,  sailor  hat, 
and  tan  shoes  —  was  imprinted  on  his  mem- 
ory as  she  instinctively  halted  to  look  upon 
the  fountain,  evidently  an  unexpected  sur- 
prise to  her. 

A  sudden  idea  flashed  upon  him.  She 
was  at  least  sixty  yards  away ;  he  was  half 
hidden  in  the  reeds  and  well  in  the  long 
shadows  of  the  willows.  If  he  remained 
perfectly  motionless  she  might  overlook  him 
at  that  distance,  or  take  him  for  one  of  the 
statues.  He  remembered  also  that  as  he 
was  resting  on  his  elbow,  his  half -submerged 
body  lying  on  the  plinth  below  water,  he 
was  somewhat  in  the  attitude  of  one  of 
the  river  gods.  And  there  was  no  other 
escape.  If  he  dived  he  might  not  be  able 
to  keep  under  water  as  long  as  she  re- 
mained, and  any  movement  he  knew  would 
betray  him.  He  stiffened  himself  and 
scarcely  breathed.  Luckily  for  him  his 
attitude  had  been  a  natural  one  and  easy 
to  keep.  It  was  well,  too,  for  she  was 
evidently  in  no  hurry  and  walked  slowly, 


A    VISION  OF   THE   FOUNTAIN       245 

stopping  from  time  to  time  to  admire  the 
basin  and  its  figures.  Suddenly  he  was  in- 
stinctively aware  that  she  was  looking  to- 
wards him  and  even  changing  her  position, 
moving  her  pretty  head  and  shading  her 
eyes  with  her  hand  as  if  for  a  better  view. 
He  remained  motionless,  scarcely  daring  to 
breathe.  Yet  there  was  something  so  in- 
nocently frank  and  undisturbed  in  her  ob- 
servation, that  he  knew  as  instinctively  that 
she  suspected  nothing,  and  took  him  for  a 
half-submerged  statue.  He  breathed  more 
freely.  But  presently  she  stopped,  glanced 
around  her,  and,  keeping  her  eyes  fixed  in 
his  direction,  began  to  walk  backwards 
slowly  until  she  reached  a  stone  balustrade 
behind  her.  On  this  she  leaped,  and,  sit- 
ting down,  opened  in  her  lap  the  sketch- 
book she  was  carrying,  and,  taking  out  a 
pencil,  to  his  horror  began  to  sketch ! 

For  a  wild  moment  he  recurred  to  his 
first  idea  of  diving  and  swimming  at  all 
hazards  to  the  bank,  but  the  conviction  that 
now  his  slightest  movement  must  be  de- 
tected held  him  motionless.  He  must  save 
her  the  mortification  of  knowing  she  was 
sketching  a  living  man,  if  he  died  for  it. 
She  sketched  rapidly  but  fixedly  and  ab- 


246        A    VISION   OF   THE  FOUNTAIN 

sorbedly,  evidently  forgetting  all  else  in 
her  work.  From  time  to  time  she  held  out 
her  sketch  before  her  to  compare  it  with 
her  subject.  Yet  the  seconds  seemed  min- 
utes and  the  minutes  hours.  Suddenly,  to 
his  great  relief,  a  distant  voice  was  heard 
calling  "Lottie."  It  was  a  woman's  voice; 
by  its  accent  it  also  seemed  to  him  an 
American  one. 

The  young  girl  made  a  slight  movement 
of  impatience,  but  did  not  look  up,  and  her 
pencil  moved  still  more  rapidly.  Again 
the  voice  called,  this  time  nearer.  The 
young  girl's  pencil  fairly  flew  over  the 
paper,  as,  still  without  looking  up,  she 
lifted  a  pretty  voice  and  answered  back, 
"Y-e-e-s!" 

It  struck  him  that  her  accent  was  also 
that  of  a  compatriot. 

"Where  on  earth  are  you?"  continued 
the  first  voice,  which  now  appeared  to  come 
from  the  other  side  of  the  willows  on  the 
path  by  which  the  young  girl  had  ap- 
proached. "Here,  aunty,"  replied  the  girl, 
closing  her  sketch-book  with  a  snap  and 
starting  to  her  feet. 

A  stout  woman,  fashionably  dressed,  made 
her  appearance  from  the  willow  path. 


A    VISION   OF   THE  FOUNTAIN       247 

"What  have  you  been  doing  all  this 
while?  "  she  said  querulously.  "Not  sketch- 
ing, I  hope,"  she  added,  with  a  suspicious 
glance  at  the  book.  "  You  know  your  pro- 
fessor expressly  forbade  you  to  do  so  in 
your  holidays." 

The  young  girl  shrugged  her  shoulders. 
"I've  been  looking  at  the  fountains,"  she 
replied  evasively. 

"And  horrid  looking  pagan  things  they 
are,  too,"  said  the  elder  woman,  turning 
from  them  disgustedly,  without  vouchsafing 
a  second  glance.  "Come.  If  we  expect 
to  do  the  abbey,  we  must  hurry  up,  or  we 
won't  catch  the  train.  Your  uncle  is  wait- 
ing for  us  at  the  top  of  the  garden." 

And,  to  Potter's  intense  relief,  she 
grasped  the  young  girl's  arm  and  hurried 
her  away,  their  figures  the  next  moment 
vanishing  in  the  tangled  shrubbery. 

Potter  lost  no  time  in  plunging  with  his 
cramped  limbs  into  the  water  and  regaining 
the  other  side.  Here  he  quickly  half  dried 
himself  with  some  sun-warmed  leaves  and 
baked  mosses,  hurried  on  his  clothes,  and 
hastened  off  in  the  opposite  direction  to  the 
path  taken  by  them,  yet  with  such  circui- 
tous skill  and  speed  that  he  reached  the 


248        A    VISION  Or   THE  FOUNTAIN 

great  gateway  without  encountering  any- 
body. A  brisk  walk  brought  him  to  the 
station  in  time  to  catch  a  stopping  train, 
and  in  half  an  hour  he  was  speeding  miles 
away  from  Domesday  Park  and  his  half- 
forgotten  episode. 

Meantime  the  two  ladies  continued  on 
their  way  to  the  abbey.  "I  don't  see  why 
I  mayn't  sketch  things  I  see  about  me," 
said  the  young  lady  impatiently.  "Of 
course,  I  understand  that  I  must  go  through 
the  rudimentary  drudgery  of  my  art  and 
study  from  casts,  and  learn  perspective,  and 
all  that;  but  I  can't  see  what 's  the  differ- 
ence between  working  in  a  stuffy  studio 
over  a  hand  or  arm  that  I  know  is  only  a 
study,  and  sketching  a  full  or  half  length 
in  the  open  air  with  the  wonderful  illusion 
of  light  and  shade  and  distance  —  and 
grouping  and  combining  them  all  —  that 
one  knows  and  feels  makes  a  picture.  The 
real  picture  one  makes  is  already  in  one's 
self." 

"For  goodness'  sake,  Lottie,  don't  go  on 
again  with  your  usual  absurdities.  Since 
you  are  bent  on  being  an  artist,  and  your 
Popper  has  consented  and  put  you  under 


A    VISION   OF   THE   FOUNTAIN        249 

the  most  expensive  master  in  Paris,  the 
least  you  can  do  is  to  follow  the  rules. 
And  I  dare  say  he  only  wanted  you  to  '  sink 
the  shop  '  in  company.  It 's  such  horrid 
bad  form  for  you  artistic  people  to  be 
always  dragging  out  your  sketch-books. 
What  would  you  say  if  your  Popper  came 
over  here,  and  began  to  examine  every 
lady's  dress  in  society  to  see  what  material 
it  was,  just  because  he  was  a  big  dry -goods 
dealer  in  America?" 

The  young  girl,  accustomed  to  her  aunt's 
extravagances,  made  no  reply.  But  that 
night  she  consulted  her  sketch,  and  was  so 
far  convinced  of  her  own  instincts,  and  the 
profound  impression  the  fountain  had  made 
upon  her,  that  she  was  enabled  to  secretly 
finish  her  interrupted  sketch  from  memory. 
For  Miss  Charlotte  Forrest  was  a  born 
artist,  and  in  no  mere  caprice  had  persuaded 
her  father  to  let  her  adopt  the  profession, 
and  accepted  the  drudgery  of  a  novitiate. 
She  looked  earnestly  upon  this  first  real 
work  of  her  hand  and  found  it  good !  Still, 
it  was  but  a  pencil  sketch,  and  wanted  the 
vivification  of  color. 

When  she  returned  to  Paris  she  began  — 
still  secretly  —  a  larger  study  in  oils.  She 


250        A    VISION    OF   THE   FOUNTAIN 

worked  upon  it  in  her  own  room  every  mo- 
ment she  could  spare  from  her  studio  prac- 
tice, unknown  to  her  professor.  It  ab- 
sorbed her  existence;  she  grew  thin  and 
pale.  When  it  was  finished,  and  only  then, 
she  showed  it  tremblingly  to  her  master. 
He  stood  silent,  in  profound  astonishment. 
The  easel  before  him  showed  a  foreground 
of  tangled  luxuriance,  from  which  stretched 
a  sheet  of  water  like  a  darkened  mirror, 
while  through  parted  reeds  on  its  glossy 
surface  arose  the  half -submerged  figure  of 
a  river  god,  exquisite  in  contour,  yet  whose 
delicate  outlines  were  almost  a  vision  by 
the  crowning  illusion  of  light,  shadow,  and 
atmosphere. 

"It  is  a  beautiful  copy,  mademoiselle, 
and  I  forgive  you  breaking  my  rules,"  he 
said,  drawing  a  long  breath.  "  But  I  can- 
not now  recall  the  original  picture." 

"It's  no  copy  of  a  picture,  professor," 
said  the  young  girl  timidly,  and  she  dis- 
closed her  secret.  "It  was  the  only  perfect 
statue  there,"  she  added  diffidently;  "but 
I  think  it  wanted  —  something." 

"True,"  said  the  professor  abstractedly. 
"  Where  the  elbow  rests  there  should  be  a 
half-inverted  urn  flowing  with  water;  but 


A    VISION   OF   THE   FOUNTAIN       251 

the  drawing  of  that  shoulder  is  so  perfect 
—  as  is  your  study  of  it  —  that  one  guesses 
the  missing  forearm  one  cannot  see,  which 
clasped  it.  Beautiful!  beautiful!" 

Suddenly  he  stopped,  and  turned  his  eyes 
almost  searchingly  on  hers. 

"You  say  you  have  never  drawn  from 
the  human  model,  mademoiselle?" 

"Never,"  said  the  young  girl  innocently. 

"True,"  murmured  the  professor  again. 
"These  are  the  classic  ideal  measurements. 
There  are  no  limbs  like  those  now.  Yet  it 
is  wonderful!  And  this  gem,  you  say,  is 
in  England?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Good !  I  am  going  there  in  a  few  days. 
I  shall  make  a  pilgrimage  to  see  it.  '  Until 
then,  mademoiselle,  I  beg  you  to  break  as 
many  of  my  rules  as  you  like." 

Three  weeks  later  she  found  the  professor 
one  morning  standing  before  her  picture  in 
her  private  studio.  "You  have  returned 
from  England,"  she  said  joyfully. 

"I  have,"  said  the  professor  gravely. 

"You  have  seen  the  original  subject?  " 
she  said  timidly. 

"I  have  not.  I  have  not  seen  it,  made- 
moiselle," he  said,  gazing  at  her  mildly 


252        A    VISION   OF   THE  FOUNTAIN 

through  his  glasses,  "because  it  does  not 
exist,  and  never  existed." 

The  young  girl  turned  pale. 

"Listen.  I  have  go  to  England.  I  ar- 
rive at  the  Park  of  Domesday.  I  penetrate 
the  beautiful,  wild  garden.  I  approach  the 
fountain.  I  see  the  wonderful  water,  the 
exquisite  light  and  shade,  the  lilies,  the 
mysterious  reeds  —  beautiful,  yet  not  as 
beautiful  as  you  have  made  it,  mademoi- 
selle, but  no  statue  —  no  river  god !  I  de- 
mand it  of  the  concierge.  He  knows  of  it 
absolutely  nothing.  I  transport  myself  to 
the  noble  proprietor,  Monsieur  le  Due,  at 
a  distant  chateau  where  he  has  collected  the 
ruined  marbles.  It  is  not  there." 

"Yet  I  saw  it,"  said  the  young  girl  ear- 
nestly, yet  with  a  troubled  face.  "0  pro- 
fessor," she  burst  out  appealingly,  "what 
do  you  think  it  was  ?  " 

"I  think,  mademoiselle,"  said  the  pro- 
fessor gravely,  "that  you  created  it.  Be- 
lieve me,  it  is  a  function  of  genius !  More, 
it  is  a  proof,  a  necessity!  You  saw  the 
beautiful  lake,  the  ruined  fountain,  the  soft 
shadows,  the  empty  plinth,  curtained  by 
reeds.  You  yourself  say  you  feel  there  was 
'  something  wanting. '  Unconsciously  you 


A    VISION   OF   THE  FOUNTAIN       253 

yourself  supplied  it.  All  that  you  had  ever 
dreamt  of  mythology,  all  that  you  had  ever 
seen  of  statuary,  thronged  upon  you  at  that 
supreme  moment,  and,  evolved  from  your 
own  fancy,  the  river  god  was  born.  It  is 
your  own,  chere  enfant,  as  much  the  off- 
spring of  your  genius  as  the  exquisite  atmo- 
sphere you  have  caught,  the  charm  of  light 
and  shadow  that  you  have  brought  away. 
Accept  my  felicitations.  You  have  little 
more  to  learn  of  me." 

As  he  bowed  himself  out  and  descended 
the  stairs  he  shrugged  his  shoulders  slightly. 
"She  is  an  adorable  genius,"  he  murmured. 
"Yet  she  is  also  a  woman.  Being  a  wo- 
man, naturally  she  has  a  lover  —  this  river 
god!  Why  not?" 

The  extraordinary  success  of  Miss  For- 
rest's picture  and  the  instantaneous  recog- 
nition of  her  merit  as  an  artist,  apart  from 
her  novel  subject,  perhaps  went  further  to 
remove  her  uneasiness  than  any  serious  con- 
viction of  the  professor's  theory.  Never- 
theless, it  appealed  to  her  poetic  and  mystic 
imagination,  and  although  other  subjects 
from  her  brush  met  with  equally  phenome- 
nal success,  and  she  was  able  in  a  year  to 
return  to  America  with  a  reputation  assured 


254        A    VISION   OF   THE  FOUNTAIN 

beyond  criticism,  she  never  entirely  forgot 
the  strange  incident  connected  with  her  ini- 
tial effort. 

And  by  degrees  a  singular  change  came 
over  her.  Rich,  famous,  and  attractive, 
she  began  to  experience  a  sentimental  and 
romantic  interest  in  that  episode.  Once, 
when  reproached  by  her  friends  for  her  in- 
difference to  her  admirers,  she  had  half 
laughingly  replied  that  she  had  once  found 
her  "  ideal,"  but  never  would  again.  Yet  the 
jest  had  scarcely  passed  her  lips  before  she 
became  pale  and  silent.  With  this  change 
came  also  a  desire  to  re-purchase  the  pic- 
ture, which  she  had  sold  in  her  early  suc- 
cess to  a  speculative  American  picture- 
dealer.  On  inquiry  she  found,  alas!  that 
it  had  been  sold  only  a  day  or  two  before 
to  a  Chicago  gentleman,  of  the  name  of 
Potter,  who  had  taken  a  fancy  to  it. 

Miss  Forrest  curled  her  pretty  lip,  but, 
nothing  daunted,  resolved  to  effect  her  pur- 
pose, and  sought  the  purchaser  at  his  hotel. 
She  was  ushered  into  a  private  drawing- 
room,  where,  on  a  handsome  easel,  stood 
the  newly  acquired  purchase.  Mr.  Potter 
was  out,  "but  would  return  in  a  moment." 

Miss  Forrest  was  relieved,  for,  alone  and 


I 
A    VISION   OF    THE   FOUNTAIN        255 

undisturbed,  she  could  now  let  her  full  soul 
go  out  to  her  romantic  creation.  As  she 
stood  there,  she  felt  the  glamour  of  the  old 
English  garden  come  back  to  her,  the  play 
of  light  and  shadow,  the  silent  pool,  the 
godlike  face  and  bust,  with  its  cast-down, 
meditative  eyes,  seen  through  the  parted 
reeds.  She  clasped  her  hands  silently  be- 
fore her.  Should  she  never  see  it  again  as 
then? 

"Pray  don't  let  me  disturb  you;  but 
won't  you  take  a  seat?" 

Miss  Forrest  turned  sharply  round. 
Then  she  started,  uttered  a  frightened  little 
cry,  and  fainted  away. 

Mr.  Potter  was  touched,  but  a  master  of 
himself.  As  she  came  to,  he  said  quietly : 
"  I  came  upon  you  suddenly  —  as  you  stood 
entranced  by  this  picture  —  just  as  I  did 
when  I  first  saw  it.  That 's  why  I  bought 
it.  Are  you  any  relative  of  the  Miss  For- 
rest who  painted  it?"  he  continued,  quietly 
looking  at  her  card,  which  he  held  in  his 
hand. 

Miss  Forrest  recovered  herself  sufficiently 
to  reply,  and  stated  her  business  with  some 
dignity. 

"Ah,"  said  Mr.  Potter,  "that  is  another 


256        A    VISWN  OF   THE  FOUNTAIN 

question.  You  see,  the  picture  has  a  special 
value  to  me,  as  I  once  saw  an  old-fashioned 
garden  like  that  in  England.  But  that 
chap  there,  —  I  beg  your  pardon,  I  mean 
that  figure,  —  I  fancy,  is  your  own  creation, 
entirely.  However,  I  '11  think  over  your 
proposition,  and  if  you  will  allow  me  I  '11 
call  and  see  you  about  it." 

Mr.  Potter  did  call  —  not  once,  but  many 
times  —  and  showed  quite  a  remarkable  in- 
terest in  Miss  Forrest's  art.  The  question 
of  the  sale  of  the  picture,  however,  remained 
in  abeyance.  A  few  weeks  later,  after  a 
longer  call  than  usual,  Mr.  Potter  said :  — 

"Don't  you  think  the  best  thing  we  can 
do  is  to  make  a  kind  of  compromise,  and 
let  us  own  the  picture  together?" 

And  they  did. 


A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  LINE 

As  the  train  moved  slowly  out  of  the 
station,  the  Writer  of  Stories  looked  up  wea- 
rily from  the  illustrated  pages  of  the  maga- 
zines and  weeklies  on  his  lap  to  the  illus- 
trated advertisements  on  the  walls  of  the 
station  sliding  past  his  carriage  windows. 
It  was  getting  to  be  monotonous.  For  a 
while  he  had  been  hopefully  interested  in 
the  bustle  of  the  departing  trains,  and  looked 
up  from  his  comfortable  and  early  invested 
position  to  the  later  comers  with  that  sense 
of  superiority  common  to  travelers;  had 
watched  the  conventional  leave-takings  — 
always  feebly  prolonged  to  the  uneasiness 
of  both  parties  —  and  contrasted  it  with  the 
impassive  business  promptitude  of  the  rail- 
way officials;  but  it  was  the  old  experience 
repeated.  Falling  back  on  the  illustrated 
advertisements  again,  he  wondered  if  their 
perpetual  recurrence  at  every  station  would 
not  at  last  bring  to  the  tired  traveler  the 
loathing  of  satiety;  whether  the  passenger 
in  railway  carriages,  continually  offered 


258  A  ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE 

Somebody's  oats,  inks,  washing  blue,  can- 
dles, and  soap,  apparently  as  a  necessary 
equipment  for  a  few  hours'  journey,  would 
not  there  and  thereafter  forever  ignore  the 
use  of  these  articles,  or  recoil  from  that 
particular  quality.  Or,  as  an  unbiased 
observer,  he  wondered  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  impressible  passengers,  after  passing 
three  or  four  stations,  had  ever  leaped  from 
the  train  and  refused  to  proceed  further 
until  they  were  supplied  with  one  or  more 
of  those  articles.  Had  he  ever  known  any 
one  who  confided  to  him  in  a  moment  of 
expansiveness  that  he  had  dated  his  use  of 
Somebody's  soap  to  an  advertisement  per- 
sistently borne  upon  him  through  the  me- 
dium of  a  railway  carriage  window?  No! 
Would  he  not  have  connected  that  man 
with  that  other  certifying  individual  who 
always  appends  a  name  and  address  singu- 
larly obscure  and  unconvincing,  yet  who,  at 
some  supreme  moment,  recommends  Some- 
body's pills  to  a  dying  friend,  —  afflicted 
with  a  similar  address,  —  which  restore  him 
to  life  and  undying  obscurity.  Yet  these 
pictorial  and  literary  appeals  must  have  a 
potency  independent  of  the  wares  they  ad- 
vertise, or  they  wouldn't  be  there. 


A   ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE  259 

Perhaps  he  was  the  more  sensitive  to  this 
monotony  as  he  was  just  then  seeking 
change  and  novelty  in  order  to  write  a  new 
story.  He  was  not  looking  for  material,  — 
his  subjects  were  usually  the  same,  —  he 
was  merely  hoping  for  that  relaxation  and 
diversion  which  should  freshen  and  fit  him 
for  later  concentration.  Still,  he  had  often 
heard  of  the  odd  circumstances  to  which  his 
craft  were  sometimes  indebted  for  sugges- 
tion. The  invasion  of  an  eccentric-looking 
individual  —  probably  an  innocent  trades- 
man—  into  a  railway  carriage  had  given 
the  hint  for  "A  Night  with  a  Lunatic; "  a 
nervously  excited  and  belated  passenger  had 
once  unconsciously  sat  for  an  escaped 
forger;  the  picking  up  of  a  forgotten  novel 
in  the  rack,  with  passages  marked  in  pencil, 
had  afforded  the  plot  of  a  love  story ;  or  the 
germ  of  a  romance  had  been  found  in  an 
obscure  news  paragraph  which,  under  less 
listless  moments,  would  have  passed  unread. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  recalled  these  in- 
convenient and  inconsistent  moments  from 
which  the  so-called  "inspiration"  sprang, 
the  utter  incongruity  of  time  and  place  in 
some  brilliant  conception,  and  wondered  if 
sheer  vacuity  of  mind  were  really  so  favor- 
able. 


£GO  A  ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE 

Going  back  to  his  magazine  again,  he 
began  to  get  mildly  interested  in  a  story. 
Turning  the  page,  however,  he  was  con- 
fronted by  a  pictorial  advertising  leaflet 
inserted  between  the  pages,  yet  so  artistic 
in  character  that  it  might  have  been  easily 
mistaken  for  an  illustration  of  the  story  he 
was  reading,  and  perhaps  was  not  more  re- 
mote or  obscure  in  reference  than  many  he 
had  known.  But  the  next  moment  he  re- 
cognized with  despair  that  it  was  only  a 
smaller  copy  of  one  he  had  seen  on  the 
hoarding  at  the  last  station.  He  threw  the 
leaflet  aside,  but  the  flavor  of  the  story  was 
gone.  The  peerless  detergent  of  the  adver- 
tisement had  erased  it  from  the  tablets  of 
his  memory.  He  leaned  back  in  his  seat 
again,  and  lazily  watched  the  flying  sub- 
urbs. Here  were  the  usual  promising 
open  spaces  and  patches  of  green,  quickly 
succeeded  again  by  solid  blocks  of  houses 
whose  rear  windows  gave  directly  upon  the 
line,  yet  seldom  showed  an  inquisitive  face 
—  even  of  a  wondering  child.  It  was  a 
strange  revelation  of  the  depressing  effects 
of  familiarity.  Expresses  might  thunder 
by,  goods  trains  drag  their  slow  length 
along,  shunting  trains  pipe  all  day  beneath 


A   ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE  261 

their  windows,  but  the  tenants  heeded  them 
not.  Here,  too,  was  the  junction,  with  its 
labyrinthine  interlacing  of  tracks  that  dazed 
the  tired  brain ;  the  overburdened  telegraph 
posts,  that  looked  as  if  they  really  could 
not  stand  another  wire;  the  long  lines  of 
empty,  homeless,  and  deserted  trains  in 
sidings  that  had  seen  better  days;  the  idle 
trains,  with  staring  vacant  windows,  which 
were  eventually  seized  by  a  pert  engine  hiss- 
ing, "Come  along,  will  you?"  and  de- 
parted with  a  discontented  grunt  from  every 
individual  carriage  coupling  ;  the  racing 
trains,  that  suddenly  appeared  parallel  with 
one's  carriage  windows,  begot  false  hopes 
of  a  challenge  of  speed,  and  then,  without 
warning,  drew  contemptuously  and  super- 
ciliously away;  the  swift  eclipse  of  every- 
thing in  a  tunneled  bridge;  the  long,  slith- 
ering passage  of  an  "up  "  express,  and  then 
the  flash  of  a  station,  incoherent  and  un- 
intelligible with  pictorial  advertisements 
again. 

He  closed  his  eyes  to  concentrate  his 
thought,  and  by  degrees  a  pleasant  languor 
stole  over  him.  The  train  had  by  this  time 
attained  that  rate  of  speed  which  gave  it 
a  slight  swing  and  roll  on  curves  and 


A   ROMANCE    OF    THE   LINE 

switches  not  unlike  the  rocking  of  a  cradle. 
Once  or  twice  he  opened  his  eyes  sleepily 
upon  the  waltzing  trees  in  the  double  planes 
of  distance,  and  again  closed  them.  Then, 
in  one  of  these  slight  oscillations,  he  felt 
himself  ridiculously  slipping  into  slumber, 
and  awoke  with  some  indignation.  An- 
other station  was  passed,  in  which  process 
the  pictorial  advertisements  on  the  hoard- 
ings and  the  pictures  in  his  lap  seemed  to 
have  become  jumbled  up,  confused,  and  to 
dance  before  him,  and  then  suddenly  and 
strangely,  without  warning,  the  train 
stopped  short  —  at  another  station.  And 
then  he  arose,  and  —  what  five  minutes  be- 
fore he  never  conceived  of  doing  —  gathered 
his  papers  and  slipped  from  the  carriage  to 
the  platform.  When  I  say  "he"  I  mean, 
of  course,  the  Writer  of  Stories;  yet  the 
man  who  slipped  out  was  half  his  age  and 
a  different-looking  person. 

The  change  from  the  motion  of  the  train 
—  for  it  seemed  that  he  had  been  traveling 
several  hours  —  to  the  firmer  platform  for 
a  moment  bewildered  him.  The  station 
looked  strange,  and  he  fancied  it  lacked  a 
certain  kind  of  distinctness.  But  that  qual- 


A    ROMANCE    OF   THE    LINE  263 

ity  was  also  noticeable  in  the  porters  and 
loungers  on  the  platform.  He  thought  it 
singular,  until  it  seemed  to  him  that  they 
were  not  characteristic,  nor  in  any  way  im- 
portant or  necessary  to  the  business  he  had 
in  hand.  Then,  with  an  effort,  he  tried  to 
remember  himself  and  his  purpose,  and 
made  his  way  through  the  station  to  the 
open  road  beyond.  A  van,  bearing  the  in- 
scription, "Removals  to  Town  and  Coun- 
try," stood  before  him  and  blocked  his  way, 
but  a  dogcart  was  in  waiting,  and  a  griz- 
zled groom,  who  held  the  reins,  touched  his 
hat  respectfully.  Although  still  dazed  by 
his  journey  and  uncertain  of  himself,  he 
seemed  to  recognize  in  the  man  that  distinc- 
tive character  which  was  wanting  in  the 
others.  The  correctness  of  his  surmise  was 
revealed  a  few  moments  later,  when,  after 
he  had  taken  his  seat  beside  him,  and  they 
were  rattling  out  of  the  village  street,  the 
man  turned  towards  him  and  said :  — 
"Tha  '11  know  Sir  Jarge?  " 
"I  do  not,"  said  the  young  man. 
"Ay!  but  theer  's  many  as  cooms  here  as 
doan't,  for  all  they  cooms.  Tha  '11  say  it 
ill  becooms  mea  as  war  man  and  boy  in  Sir 
Jarge 's  sarvice  for  fifty  year,  to  say  owt 


264  A   ROMANCE    OF   THE   LINE 

agen  him,  but  I  'm  here  to  do  it,  or  they 
couldn't  foolfil  their  business.  Tha  wast 
to  ax  me  questions  about  Sir  Jarge  and  the 
Grange,  and  I  wor  to  answer  soa  as  to  make 
tha  think  thar  was  suthing  wrong  wi'  un. 
Howbut  I  may  save  tha  time  and  tell  thea 
downroight  that  Sir  Jarge  forged  his  un- 
cle's will,  and  so  gotten  the  Grange.  That 
'ee  keeps  his  niece  in  mortal  fear  o'  he. 
That  tha  '11  be  put  in  haunted  chamber  wi' 
a  boggle." 

"I  think,"  said  the  young  man  hesitat- 
ingly, "that  there  must  be  some  mistake. 
I  do  not  know  any  Sir  George,  and  I  am 
not  going  to  the  Grange." 

"Eay!  Then  thee  aren't  the  'ero  sent 
down  from  London  by  the  story  writer?" 

"Not  by  that  one,"  said  the  young  man 
diffidently. 

The  old  man's  face  changed.  It  was  no 
mere  figure  of  speech:  it  actually  was  an- 
other face  that  looked  down  upon  the  trav- 
eler. 

"Then  mayhap  your  honor  will  be  be- 
spoken at  the  Angel's  Inn,"  he  said,  with 
an  entirely  distinct  and  older  dialect,  "and 
a  finer  hostel  for  a  young  gentleman  of 
your  condition  ye  '11  not  find  on  this  side  of 


A  ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE  265 

Oxford.  A  fair  chamber,  looking  to  th« 
sun ;  sheets  smelling  of  lavender  from  Dame 
Margery's  own  store,  and,  for  the  matter 
of  that,  spread  by  the  fair  hands  of  Maud- 
lin, her  daughter — the  best  favored  lass 
that  ever  danced  under  a  Maypole.  Ha! 
have  at  ye  there,  young  sir !  Not  to  speak 
of  the  October  ale  of  old  Gregory,  her 
father  —  ay,  nor  the  rare  Hollands,  that 
never  paid  excise  duties  to  the  king." 

"I'm  afraid,"  said  the  young  traveler 
timidly,  "there's  over  a  century  between 
us.  There  's  really  some  mistake." 

"What?"  said  the  groom,  "ye  are  not 
the  young  spark  who  is  to  marry  Mistress 
Amy  at  the  Hall,  yet  makes  a  pother  and 
mess  of  it  all  by  a  duel  with  Sir  Roger  de 
Cadgerly,  the  wicked  baronet,  for  his  over- 
free  discourse  with  our  fair  Maudlin  this 
very  eve?  Ye  are  not  the  traveler  whose 
post-chaise  is  now  at  the  Falcon?  Ye  are 
not  he  that  was  bespoken  by  the  story 
writer  in  London?" 

"I  don't  think  I  am,"  said  the  young 
man  apologetically.  "Indeed,  as  I  am  feel- 
ing far  from  well,  I  think  I  '11  get  out  and 
walk." 

He  got  down  —  the   vehicle  and   driver 


266  A  ROMANCE    OF   THE   LINE 

vanished  in  the  distance.  It  did  not  sur- 
prise him.  "I  must  collect  my  thoughts," 
he  said.  He  did  so.  Possibly  the  collec- 
tion was  not  large,  for  presently  he  said, 
with  a  sigh  of  relief :  — 

"I  see  it  all  now!  My  name  is  Paul 
Bunker.  I  am  of  the  young  branch  of  an 
old  Quaker  family,  rich  and  respected  in 
the  country,  and  I  am  on  a  visit  to  my  an- 
cestral home.  But  I  have  lived  since  a 
child  in  America,  and  am  alien  to  the  tra- 
ditions and  customs  of  the  old  country,  and 
even  of  the  seat  to  which  my  fathers  belong. 
I  have  brought  with  me  from  the  far  West 
many  peculiarities  of  speech  and  thought 
that  may  startle  my  kinsfolk.  But  I  cer- 
tainly shall  not  address  my  uncle  as  '  Hoss ! ' 
nor  shall  I  say  '  guess '  oftener  than  is 
necessary." 

Much  brightened  and  refreshed  by  his 
settled  identity,  he  had  time,  as  he  walked 
briskly  along,  to  notice  the  scenery,  which 
was  certainly  varied  and  conflicting  in  char- 
acter, and  quite  inconsistent  with  his  pre- 
conceived notions  of  an  English  landscape. 
On  his  right,  a  lake  of  the  brightest  cobalt 
blue  stretched  before  a  many-towered  and 
terraced  town,  which  was  relieved  by  a 


A  ROMANCE    OF   THE  LINE  267 

background  of  luxuriant  foliage  and  emer- 
ald-green mountains;  on  his  left  arose  a 
rugged  mountain,  which  he  was  surprised 
to  see  was  snow-capped,  albeit  a  tunnel  was 
observable  midway  of  its  height,  and  a  train 
just  issuing  from  it.  Almost  regretting  that 
he  had  not  continued  on  his  journey,  as  he 
was  fully  sensible  that  it  was  in  some  way 
connected  with  the  railway  he  had  quitted, 
presently  his  attention  was  directed  to  the 
gateway  of  a  handsome  park,  whose  man- 
sion was  faintly  seen  in  the  distance.  Hur- 
rying towards  him,  down  the  avenue  of 
limes,  was  a  strange  figure.  It  was  that  of 
a  man  of  middle  age,  clad  in  Quaker  garb, 
yet  with  an  extravagance  of  cut  and  detail 
which  seemed  antiquated  even  for  England. 
He  had  evidently  seen  the  young  man  ap- 
proaching, and  his  face  was  beaming  with 
welcome.  If  Paul  had  doubted  that  it  was 
his  uncle,  the  first  words  he  spoke  would 
have  reassured  him. 

"Welcome  to  Hawthorn  Hall,"  said  the 
figure,  grasping  his  hand  heartily,  "but 
thee  will  excuse  me  if  I  do  not  tarry  with 
thee  long  at  present,  for  I  am  hastening, 
even  now,  with  some  nourishing  and  sus- 
taining food  for  Giles  Hayward,  a  farm 


A  ROMANCE   OF   THE  LINE 

laborer."  He  pointed  to  a  package  he  was 
carrying.  "But  thee  will  find  thy  cousins 
Jane  and  Dorcas  Bunker  taking  tea  in  the 
summer-house.  Go  to  them !  Nay  —  posi- 
tively—  I  may  not  linger,  but  will  return 
to  thee  quickly."  And,  to  Paul's  astonish- 
ment, he  trotted  away  on  his  sturdy,  re- 
spectable legs,  still  beaming  and  carrying 
his  package  in  his  hand. 

"Well,  I'll  be  dog-goned!  but  the  old 
man  ain't  going  to  be  left,  you  bet!"  he 
ejaculated,  suddenly  remembering  his  dia- 
lect. "He'll  get  there,  whether  school 
keeps  or  not!"  Then,  reflecting  that  no 
one  heard  him,  he  added  simply,  "He  cer- 
tainly was  not  over  civil  towards  the  nephew 
he  has  never  seen  before.  And  those  girls 
—  whom  I  don't  know!  How  very  awk- 
ward!" 

Nevertheless,  he  continued  his  way  up 
the  avenue  towards  the  mansion.  The  park 
was  beautifully  kept.  Remembering  the 
native  wildness  and  virgin  seclusion  of  the 
Western  forest,  he  could  not  help  contrast- 
ing it  with  the  conservative  gardening  of 
this  pretty  woodland,  every  rood  of  which 
had  been  patrolled  by  keepers  and  rangers, 
and  preserved  and  fostered  hundreds  of 


A  ROMANCE   OF   THE  LINE  269 

years  before  he  was  born,  until  warmed  for 
human  occupancy.  At  times  the  avenue 
was  crossed  by  grass  drives,  where  the  origi- 
nal woodland  had  been  displaced,  not  by 
the  exigency  of  a  "clearing"  for  tillage,  as 
in  his  own  West,  but  for  the  leisurely  plea- 
sure of  the  owner.  Then,  a  few  hundred 
yards  from  the  house  itself,  —  a  quaint  Jaco- 
bean mansion,  —  he  came  to  an  open  space 
where  the  sylvan  landscape  had  yielded  to 
floral  cultivation,  and  so  fell  upon  a  charm- 
ing summer-house,  or  arbor,  embowered 
with  roses.  It  must  have  been  the  one  of 
which  his  uncle  had  spoken,  for  there,  to 
his  wondering  admiration,  sat  two  little 
maids  before  a  rustic  table,  drinking  tea 
demurely,  yes,  with  all  the  evident  delight 
of  a  childish  escapade  from  their  elders. 
While  in  the  picturesque  quaintness  of  their 
attire  there  was  still  a  formal  suggestion  of 
the  sect  to  which  their  father  belonged, 
their  summer  frocks  —  differing  in  color, 
yet  each  of  the  same  subdued  tint  —  were 
alike  in  cut  and  fashion,  and  short  enough 
to  show  their  dainty  feet  in  prim  slippers 
and  silken  hose  that  matched  their  frocks. 
As  the  afternoon  sun  glanced  through  the 
leaves  upon  their  pink  cheeks,  tied  up  in 


270  A  ROMANCE    OF  THE  LINE 

quaint  hats  by  ribbons  under  their  chins, 
they  made  a  charming  picture.  At  least 
Paul  thought  so  as  he  advanced  towards 
them,  hat  in  hand.  They  looked  up  at  his 
approach,  but  again  cast  down  their  eyes 
with  demure  shyness;  yet  he  fancied  that 
they  first  exchanged  glances  with  each 
other,  full  of  mischievous  intelligence. 

"I  am  your  cousin  Paul,"  he  said  smil- 
ingly, "though  I  am  afraid  I  am  introdu- 
cing myself  almost  as  briefly  as  your  father 
just  now  excused  himself  to  me.  He  told 
me  I  would  find  you  here,  but  he  himself 
was  hastening  on  a  Samaritan  mission." 

"With  a  box  in  his  hand?  "  said  the  girls 
simultaneously,  exchanging  glances  with 
each  other  again. 

"With  a  box  containing  some  restorative, 
I  think,"  responded  Paul,  a  little  wonder- 


"Restorative!  So  that's  what  he  calls 
it  now,  is  it?"  said  one  of  the  girls  saucily. 
"Well,  no  one  knows  what's  in  the  box, 
though  he  always  carries  it  with  him.  Thee 
never  sees  him  without  it  "  — 

"And  a  roll  of  paper,"  suggested  the 
other  girl. 

"Yes,  a  roll  of   paper  —  but  one  never 


A  ROMANCE   OF  THE   LINE  271 

knows  what  it  is ! "  said  the  first  speaker. 
"It's  very  strange.  But  no  matter  now, 
Paul.  Welcome  to  Hawthorn  Hall.  I  am 
Jane  Bunker,  and  this  is  Dorcas."  She 
stopped,  and  then,  looking  down  demurely, 
added,  "Thee  may  kiss  us  both,  cousin 
Paul." 

The  young  man  did  not  wait  for  a  second 
invitation,  but  gently  touched  his  lips  to 
their  soft  young  cheeks. 

"Thee  does  not  speak  like  an  American, 
Paul.  Is  thee  really  and  truly  one  ?  "  con- 
tinued Jane. 

Paul  remembered  that  he  had  forgotten 
his  dialect,  but  it  was  too  late  now. 

"I  am  really  and  truly  one,  and  your 
own  cousin,  and  I  hope  you  will  find  me 
a  very  dear  "  — 

"  Oh !  "  said  Dorcas,  starting  up  primly. 
"You  must  really  allow  me  to  withdraw." 
To  the  young  man's  astonishment,  she 
seized  her  parasol,  and,  with  a  youthful 
affectation  of  dignity,  glided  from  the  sum- 
mer-house and  was  lost  among  the  trees. 

"Thy  declaration  to  me  was  rather  sud- 
den," said  Jane  quietly,  in  answer  to  his 
look  of  surprise,  "and  Dorcas  is  peculiarly 
sensitive  and  less  like  the  '  world's  people  ' 


272  A   ROMANCE    OF   THE  LINE 

than  I  am.  And  it  was  just  a  little  cruel, 
considering  that  she  has  loved  thee  secretly 
all  these  years,  followed  thy  fortunes  in 
America  with  breathless  eagerness,  thrilled 
at  thy  narrow  escapes,  and  wept  at  thy 
privations." 

"But  she  has  never  seen  me  before!" 
said  the  astounded  Paul. 

"And  thee  had  never  seen  me  before, 
and  yet  thee  has  dared  to  propose  to  me 
five  minutes  after  thee  arrived,  and  in  her 
presence." 

"But,  my  dear  girl! "  expostulated  Paul. 

"Stand  off!"  she  said,  rapidly  opening 
her  parasol  and  interposing  it  between 
them.  "Another  step  nearer  —  ay,  even 
another  word  of  endearment  —  and  I  shall 
be  compelled  —  nay,  forced,"  she  added  in 
a  lower  voice,  "to  remove  this  parasol,  lest 
it  should  be  crushed  and  ruined !  " 

"I  see,"  he  said  gloomily,  "you  have 
been  reading  novels;  but  so  have  I,  and 
the  same  ones!  Nevertheless,  I  intended 
only  to  tell  you  that  I  hoped  you  would 
always  find  me  a  kind  friend." 

She  shut  her  parasol  up  with  a  snap. 
"  And  I  only  intended  to  tell  thee  that  my 
heart  was  given  to  another." 


A   ROMANCE    OF   THE   LINE  273 

"You  intended  —  and  now?" 

"Is  it  the  '  kind  friend  '  who  asks?" 

"If  it  were  not?" 

"Eeally?" 

"Yes." 

"Ah!" 

"Oh!" 

"But  thee  loves  another?  "  she  said,  toy- 
ing with  her  cup. 

He  attempted  to  toy  with  his,  but  broke 
it.  A  man  lacks  delicacy  in  this  kind  of 
persiflage.  "You  mean  I  am  loved  by  an- 
other," he  said  bluntly. 

"You  dare  to  say  that! "  she  said,  flash- 
ing, in  spite  of  her  prim  demeanor. 

"No,  but  you  did  just  now!  You  said 
your  sister  loved  me!  " 

"Did  I?"  she  said  dreamily.  "Dear! 
dear!  That 's  the  trouble  of  trying  to  talk 
like  Mr.  Blank's  delightful  dialogues.  One 
gets  so  mixed! " 

"Yet  you  will  be  a  sister  to  me?"  he 
said.  "'Tis  an  old  American  joke,  but 
'twill  serve." 

There  was  a  long  silence. 

"Had  thee  not  better  go  to  sister  Dor- 
cas? She  is  playing  with  the  cows,"  said 
Jane  plaintively. 


274  A  ROMANCE   OF   THE  LINE 

"You  forget,"  he  returned  gravely,  "that, 
on  page  27  of  the  novel  we  have  both  read, 
at  this  point  he  is  supposed  to  kiss  her." 

She  had  forgotten,  but  they  both  remem- 
bered in  time.  At  this  moment  a  scream 
came  faintly  from  the  distance.  They  both 
started,  and  rose. 

"It  is  sister  Dorcas,"  said  Jane,  sitting 
down  again  and  pouring  out  another  cup  of 
tea.  "I  have  always  told  her  that  one  of 
those  Swiss  cows  would  hook  her." 

Paul  stared  at  her  with  a  strange  revul- 
sion of  feeling.  "I  could  save  Dorcas,"  he 
muttered  to  himself,  "in  less  time  than  it 
takes  to  describe."  He  paused,  however, 
as  he  reflected  that  this  would  depend  en- 
tirely upon  the  methods  of  the  writer  of 
this  description.  "I  could  rescue  her!  I 
have  only  to  take  the  first  clothes-line  that 
I  find,  and  with  that  knowledge  and  skill 
with  the  lasso  which  I  learned  in  the  wilds 
of  America,  I  could  stop  the  charge  of  the 
most  furious  ruminant.  I  will !  "  and  with- 
out another  word  he  turned  and  rushed  off 
in  the  direction  of  the  sound. 

He  had  not  gone  a  hundred  yards  before 
he  paused,  a  little  bewildered.  To  the  left 


A   ROMANCE    OF   THE   LINE  275 

could  still  be  seen  the  cobalt  lake  with 
the  terraced  background;  to  the  right  the 
rugged  mountains.  He  chose  the  latter. 
Luckily  for  him  a  cottager's  garden  lay  in 
his  path,  and  from  a  line  supported  by  a 
single  pole  depended  the  homely  linen  of 
the  cottager.  To  tear  these  garments  from 
the  line  was  the  work  of  a  moment  (al- 
though it  represented  the  whole  week's 
washing),  and  hastily  coiling  the  rope  dex- 
terously in  his  hand,  he  sped  onward.  Al- 
ready panting  with  exertion  and  excitement, 
a  few  roods  farther  he  was  confronted  with 
a  spectacle  that  left  him  breathless. 

A  woman  —  young,  robust,  yet  gracefully 
formed  —  was  running  ahead  of  him,  driv- 
ing before  her  with  an  open  parasol  an  ani- 
mal which  he  instantly  recognized  as  one 
of  that  simple  yet  treacherous  species  most 
feared  by  the  sex  —  known  as  the  "Moo 
Cow." 

For  a  moment  he  was  appalled  by  the 
spectacle.  But  it  was  only  for  a  moment! 
Recalling  his  manhood  and  her  weakness, 
he  stopped,  and  bracing  his  foot  against  a 
stone,  with  a  graceful  flourish  of  his  lasso 
around  his  head,  threw  it  in  the  air.  It 
uncoiled  slowly,  sped  forward  with  unerr- 


276  A  ROMANCE    OF   THE  LINE 

ing  precision,  and  missed!  With  the  sin- 
gle cry  of  "Saved! "  the  fair  stranger  sank 
fainting  in  his  arms!  He  held  her  closely 
until  the  color  came  back  to  her  pale  face. 
Then  he  quietly  disentangled  the  lasso  from 
his  legs. 

"Where  am  I?"  she  said  faintly. 

"In  the  same  place,"  he  replied,  slowly 
but  firmly.  "But,"  he  added,  "you  have 
changed! " 

She  had,  indeed,  even  to  her  dress.  It 
was  now  of  a  vivid  brick  red,  and  so  much 
longer  in  the  skirt  that  it  seemed  to  make 
her  taller.  Only  her  hat  remained  the 
same. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  in  a  low,  reflective  voice 
and  a  disregard  of  her  previous  dialect,  as 
she  gazed  up  in  his  eyes  with  an  eloquent 
lucidity,  "I  have  changed,  Paul!  I  feel 
myself  changing  at  those  words  you  uttered 
to  Jane.  There  are  moments  in  a  woman's 
life  that  man  knows  nothing  of;  moments 
bitter  and  cruel,  sweet  and  merciful,  that 
change  her  whole  being;  moments  in  which 
the  simple  girl  becomes  a  worldly  woman ; 
moments  in  which  the  slow  procession  of 
her  years  is  never  noted  —  except  by  an- 
other woman!  Moments  that  change  her 


A   ROMANCE    OF   TI1E   LINE  277 

outlook  on  the  world  and  her  relations  to  it 
—  and  her  husband's  relations!  Moments 
when  the  maid  becomes  a  wife,  the  wife  a 
widow,  the  widow  a  re-married  woman,  by 
a  simple,  swift  illumination  of  the  fancy. 
Moments  when,  wrought  upon  by  a  single 
word  —  a  look  —  an  emphasis  and  rising 
inflection,  all  logical  sequence  is  cast  away, 
processes  are  lost  —  inductions  lead  no- 
where. Moments  when  the  inharmonious 
becomes  harmonious,  the  indiscreet  discreet, 
the  inefficient  efficient,  and  the  inevitable 
evitable.  I  mean,"  she  corrected  herself 
hurriedly  —  "You  know  what  I  mean!  If 
you  have  not  felt  it  you  have  read  it!  " 

"I  have,"  he  said  thoughtfully.  "We 
have  both  read  it  in  the  same  novel.  She 
is  a  fine  writer." 

"Ye-e-s."  She  hesitated  with  that  slight 
resentment  of  praise  of  another  woman  so 
delightful  in  her  sex.  "But  you  have  for- 
gotten the  Moo  Cow ! "  and  she  pointed  to 
where  the  distracted  animal  was  careering 
across  the  lawn  towards  the  garden. 

"You  are  right,"  he  said,  "the  incident 
is  not  yet  closed.  Let  us  pursue  it." 

They  both  pursued  it.  Discarding  the 
useless  lasso,  he  had  recourse  to  a  few 


278  A  ROMANCE   OF   THE  LINE 

well-aimed  epithets.  The  infuriated  ani- 
mal swerved  and  made  directly  towards  a 
small  fountain  in  the  centre  of  the  garden. 
In  attempting  to  clear  it,  it  fell  directly 
into  the  deep  cup-like  basin  and  remained 
helplessly  fixed,  with  its  fore-legs  projecting 
uneasily  beyond  the  rim. 

"Let  us  leave  it  there,"  she  said,  "and 
forget  it  —  and  all  that  has  gone  before. 
Believe  me,"  she  added,  with  a  faint  sigh, 
"it  is  best.  Our  paths  diverge  from  this 
moment.  I  go  to  the  summer-house,  and 
you  go  to  the  Hall,  where  my  father  is  ex- 
pecting you."  He  would  have  detained 
her  a  moment  longer,  but  she  glided  away 
and  was  gone. 

Left  to  himself  again,  that  slight  sense 
of  bewilderment  which  had  clouded  his  mind 
for  the  last  hour  began  to  clear  away;  his 
singular  encounter  with  the  girls  strangely 
enough  affected  him  less  strongly  than  his 
brief  and  unsatisfactory  interview  with  his 
uncle.  For,  after  all,  he  was  his  host,  and 
upon  him  depended  his  stay  at  Hawthorn 
Hall.  The  mysterious  and  slighting  allu- 
sions of  his  cousins  to  the  old  man's  eccen- 
tricities also  piqued  his  curiosity.  Why 
had  they  sneered  at  his  description  of  the 


A   ROMANCE    OF   THE   LINE  279 

contents  of  the  package  he  carried  —  and 
what  did  it  really  contain?  He  did  not 
reflect  that  it  was  none  of  his  business,  — 
people  in  his  situation  seldom  do,  —  and  he 
eagerly  hurried  towards  the  Hall.  But  he 
found  in  his  preoccupation  he  had  taken 
the  wrong  turning  in  the  path,  and  that  he 
was  now  close  to  the  wall  which  bounded 
and  overlooked  the  highway.  Here  a  sin- 
gular spectacle  presented  itself.  A  cyclist 
covered  with  dust  was  seated  in  the  middle 
of  the  road,  trying  to  restore  circulation  to 
his  bruised  and  injured  leg  by  chafing  it 
with  his  hands,  while  beside  him  lay  his 
damaged  bicycle.  He  had  evidently  met 
with  an  accident.  In  an  instant  Paul  had 
climbed  the  wall  and  was  at  his  side. 

"Can  I  offer  you  any  assistance?"  he 
asked  eagerly. 

"Thanks  —  no!  I've  come  a  beastly 
cropper  over  something  or  other  on  this 
road,  and  I  'm  only  bruised,  though  the 
machine  has  suffered  worse,"  replied  the 
stranger,  in  a  fresh,  cheery  voice.  He  was 
a  good-looking  fellow  of  about  Paul's  own 
age,  and  the  young  American's  heart  went 
out  towards  him. 

"How  did  it  happen  ? "  asked  Paul. 


280  A  ROMANCE    OF  THE  LINE 

"That's  what  puzzles  me,"  said  the 
stranger.  "I  was  getting  out  of  the  way 
of  a  queer  old  chap  in  the  road,  and  I  ran 
over  something  that  seemed  only  an  old 
scroll  of  paper;  but  the  shock  was  so  great 
that  I  was  thrown,  and  I  fancy  I  was  for 
a  few  moments  unconscious.  Yet  I  cannot 
see  any  other  obstruction  in  the  road,  and 
there  's  only  that  bit  of  paper."  He  pointed 
to  the  paper,  —  a  half -crushed  roll  of  ordi- 
nary foolscap,  showing  the  mark  of  the 
bicycle  upon  it. 

A  strange  idea  came  into  Paul's  mind. 
He  picked  up  the  paper  and  examined  it 
closely.  Besides  the  mark  already  indi- 
cated, it  showed  two  sharp  creases  about 
nine  inches  long,  and  another  exactly  at 
the  point  of  the  impact  of  the  bicycle. 
Taking  a  folded  two-foot  rule  from  his 
pocket,  he  carefully  measured  these  parallel 
creases  and  made  an  exhaustive  geometrical 
calculation  with  his  pencil  on  the  paper. 
The  stranger  watched  him  with  awed  and 
admiring  interest.  Rising,  he  again  care- 
fully examined  the  road,  and  was  finally 
rewarded  by  the  discovery  of  a  sharp  inden- 
tation in  the  dust,  which,  on  measurement 
and  comparison  with  the  creases  in  the 


A   ROMANCE    OF   THE  LINE  281 

paper  and  the  calculations  he  had  just 
made,  proved  to  be  identical. 

"There  was  a  solid  body  in  that  paper," 
said  Paul  quietly;  "a  parallelogram  exactly 
nine  inches  long  and  three  wide." 

"I  say!  you  're  wonderfully  clever,  don't 
you  know,"  said  the  stranger,  with  unaf- 
fected wonder.  "I  see  it  all  —  a  brick." 

Paul  smiled  gently  and  shook  his  head. 
"That  is  the  hasty  inference  of  an  inexpe- 
rienced observer.  You  will  observe  at  the 
point  of  impact  of  your  wheel  the  parallel 
crease  is  curved,  as  from  the  yielding  of 
the  resisting  substances,  and  not  broken, 
as  it  would  be  by  the  crumbling  of  a  brick." 

"I  say,  you're  awfully  detective,  don't 
you  know !  just  like  that  fellow  —  what 's 
his  name?"  said  the  stranger  admiringly. 

The  words  recalled  Paul  to  himself. 
Why  was  he  acting  like  a  detective?  and 
what  was  he  seeking  to  discover?  Never- 
theless, he  felt  impelled  to  continue.  "And 
that  queer  old  chap  whom  you  met  —  why 
did  n't  he  help  you?" 

"Because  I  passed  him  before  I  ran  into 
the  —  the  parallelogram,  and  I  suppose  he 
didn't  know  what  happened  behind  him?" 

"Did  he  have  anything  in  his  hand?" 


282  A   ROMANCE    OF   THE  LINE 

"Can't  say." 

"And  you  say  you  were  unconscious  af- 
terwards? " 

"Yes!" 

"Long  enough  for  the  culprit  to  remove 
the  principal  evidence  of  his  crime?  " 

"Come!  I  say,  really  you  are  —  you 
know  you  are !  " 

"Have  you  any  secret  enemy?" 

"No." 

"And  you  don't  know  Mr.  Bunker,  the 
man  who  owns  this  vast  estate?" 

"Not  at  all.    I  'm  from  Upper  Tooting." 

"Good  afternoon,"  said  Paul  abruptly, 
and  turned  away. 

It  struck  him  afterwards  that  his  action 
might  have  seemed  uncivil,  and  even  in- 
human, to  the  bruised  cyclist,  who  could 
hardly  walk.  But  it  was  getting  late,  and 
he  was  still  far  from  the  Hall,  which,  oddly 
enough,  seemed  to  be  no  longer  visible  from 
the  road.  He  wandered  on  for  some  time, 
half  convinced  that  he  had  passed  the  lodge 
gates,  yet  hoping  to  find  some  other  en- 
trance to  the  domain.  Dusk  was  falling; 
the  rounded  outlines  of  the  park  trees  be- 
yond the  wall  were  solid  masses  of  shadow. 
The  full  moon,  presently  rising,  restored 


A  ROMANCE   OF   THE  LINE  283 

them  again  to  symmetry,  and  at  last  he,  to 
his  relief,  came  upon  the  massive  gateway. 
Two  lions  ramped  in  stone  on  the  side  pil- 
lars. He  thought  it  strange  that  he  had 
not  noticed  the  gateway  on  his  previous  en- 
trance, but  he  remembered  that  he  was  fully 
preoccupied  with  the  advancing  figure  of 
his  uncle.  In  a  few  minutes  the  Hall  itself 
appeared,  and  here  again  he  was  surprised 
that  he  had  overlooked  before  its  noble  pro- 
portions and  picturesque  outline.  Its  broad 
terraces,  dazzlingly  white  in  the  moonlight; 
its  long  line  of  mullioned  windows,  suffused 
with  a  warm  red  glow  from  within,  made  it 
look  like  part  of  a  wintry  landscape  —  and 
suggested  a  Christmas  card.  The  vener- 
able ivy  that  hid  the  ravages  time  had  made 
in  its  walls  looked  like  black  carving.  His 
heart  swelled  with  strange  emotions  as  he 
gazed  at  his  ancestral  hall.  How  many  of 
his  blood  had  lived  and  died  there;  how 
many  had  gone  forth  from  that  great  porch 
to  distant  lands !  He  tried  to  think  of  his 
father  —  a  little  child  —  peeping  between 
the  balustrades  of  that  terrace.  He  tried 
to  think  of  it,  and  perhaps  would  have  suc- 
ceeded had  it  not  occurred  to  him  that  it 
was  a  known  fact  that  his  uncle  had  bought 


284  A  ROMANCE    OF   THE  LINE 

the  estate  and  house  of  an  impoverished 
nobleman  only  the  year  before.  Yet  —  he 
could  not  tell  why  —  he  seemed  to  feel  higher 
and  nobler  for  that  trial. 

The  terrace  was  deserted,  and  so  quiet 
that  as  he  ascended  to  it  his  footsteps 
seemed  to  echo  from  the  walls.  When  he 
reached  the  portals,  the  great  oaken  door 
swung  noiselessly  on  its  hinges  —  opened 
by  some  unseen  but  waiting  servitor  —  and 
admitted  him  to  a  lofty  hall,  dark  with 
hangings  and  family  portraits,  but  warmed 
by  a  red  carpet  the  whole  length  of  its  stone 
floor.  For  a  moment  he  waited  for  the 
servant  to  show  him  to  the  drawing-room 
or  his  uncle's  study.  But  no  one  appeared. 
Believing  this  to  be  a  part  of  the  char- 
acteristic simplicity  of  the  Quaker  house- 
hold, he  boldly  entered  the  first  door,  and 
found  himself  in  a  brilliantly  lit  and  per- 
fectly empty  drawing-room.  The  same  ex- 
perience met  him  with  the  other  rooms  on 
that  floor  —  the  dining-room  displaying  an 
already  set,  exquisitely  furnished  and  deco- 
rated table,  with  chairs  for  twenty  guests! 
He  mechanically  ascended  the  wide  oaken 
staircase  that  led  to  the  corridor  of  bed- 
rooms above  a  central  salon.  Here  he 


A   ROMANCE    OF   THE   LINE  285 

found  only  the  same  solitude.  Bedroom 
doors  yielded  to  his  touch,  only  to  show  the 
same  brilliantly  lit  vacancy.  He  presently 
came  upon  one  room  which  seemed  to  give 
unmistakable  signs  of  his  own  occupancy. 
Surely  there  stood  his  own  dressing-case  on 
the  table !  and  his  own  evening  clothes  care- 
fully laid  out  on  another,  as  if  fresh  from 
a  valet's  hands.  He  stepped  hastily  into 
the  corridor  —  there  was  no  one  there;  he 
rang  the  bell  —  there  was  no  response! 
But  he  noticed  that  there  was  a  jug  of  hot 
water  in  his  basin,  and  he  began  dressing 
mechanically. 

There  was  little  doubt  that  he  was  in  a 
haunted  house,  but  this  did  not  particularly 
disturb  him.  Indeed,  he  found  himself 
wondering  if  it  could  be  logically  called 
a  haunted  house  —  unless  he  himself  was 
haunting  it,  for  there  seemed  to  be  no  other 
there.  Perhaps  the  apparitions  would  come 
later,  when  he  was  dressed.  Clearly  it  was 
not  his  uncle's  house  —  and  yet,  as  he  had 
never  been  inside  his  uncle's  house,  he  re- 
flected that  he  ought  not  to  be  positive. 

He  finished  dressing  and  sat  down  in  an 
armchair  with  a  kind  of  thoughtful  expec- 
tancy. But  presently  his  curiosity  became 


286  A  ROMANCE    OF  THE  LINE 

impatient  of  the  silence  and  mystery,  and 
he  ventured  once  more  to  explore  the  house. 
Opening  his  bedroom  door,  he  found  him- 
self again  upon  the  deserted  corridor,  but 
this  time  he  could  distinctly  hear  a  buzz 
of  voices  from  the  drawing-room  below. 
Assured  that  he  was  near  a  solution  of  the 
mystery,  he  rapidly  descended  the  broad 
staircase  and  made  his  way  to  the  open 
door  of  the  drawing-room.  But  although 
the  sound  of  voices  increased  as  he  ad- 
vanced, when  he  entered  the  room,  to  his 
utter  astonishment,  it  was  as  empty  as  be- 
fore. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  his  bewilderment  and 
confusion,  he  was  able  to  follow  one  of  the 
voices,  which,  in  its  peculiar  distinctness 
and  half-perfunctory  tone,  he  concluded 
must  belong  to  the  host  of  the  invisible 
assembly. 

"Ah,"  said  the  voice,  greeting  some 
unseen  visitor,  "so  glad  you  have  come. 
Afraid  your  engagements  just  now  would 
keep  you  away."  Then  the  voice  dropped 
to  a  lower  and  more  confidential  tone. 
"You  must  take  down  Lady  Dartman,  but 
you  will  have  Miss  Morecamp  —  a  clever 
girl  —  on  the  other  side  of  you.  Ah,  Sir 


A   ROMANCE   CF  TEE  LINE  287 

George!  So  good  of  you  to  come.  All 
well  at  the  Priory?  So  glad  to  hear  it." 
(Lower  and  more  confidentially.)  "You 
know  Mrs.  Monkston.  You  '11  sit  by  her. 
A  little  cut  up  by  her  husband  losing  his 
seat.  Try  to  amuse  her." 

Emboldened  by  desperation,  Paul  turned 
in  the  direction  of  the  voice.  "I  am  Paul 
Bunker,"  he  said  hesitatingly.  "I  'm 
afraid  you  '11  think  me  intrusive,  but  I  was 
looking  for  my  uncle,  and  "  — 

"Intrusive,  my  dear  boy!  The  son  of 
my  near  neighbor  in  the  country  intrusive  ? 
Keally,  now,  I  like  that!  Grace!"  (the 
voice  turned  in  another  direction)  "here  is 
the  American  nephew  of  our  neighbor 
Bunker  at  Widdlestone,  who  thinks  he  is 
'  a  stranger. ' ' 

"We  all  knew  of  your  expected  arrival 
at  Widdlestone  —  it  was  so  good  of  you  to 
waive  ceremony  and  join  us,"  said  a  well- 
bred  feminine  voice,  which  Paul  at  once 
assumed  to  belong  to  the  hostess.  "But  I 
must  find  some  one  for  your  dinner  partner. 
Mary  "  (here  her  voice  was  likewise  turned 
away),  "this  is  Mr.  Bunker,  the  nephew  of 
an  old  friend  and  neighbor  in  Upshire;" 
(the  voice  again  turned  to  him),  "you  will 


288  A   ROMANCE   OF   THE  LINE 

take  Miss  Morecamp  in.  My  dear  "  (once 
again  averted),  "I  must  find  some  one  else 
to  console  poor  dear  Lord  Billingtree  with." 
Here  the  hostess's  voice  was  drowned  by 
fresh  arrivals. 

Bewildered  and  confused  as  he  was, 
standing  in  this  empty  desert  of  a  drawing- 
room,  yet  encompassed  on  every  side  by 
human  voices,  so  marvelous  was  the  power 
of  suggestion,  he  seemed  to  almost  feel  the 
impact  of  the  invisible  crowd.  He  was 
trying  desperately  to  realize  his  situation 
when  a  singularly  fascinating  voice  at  his 
elbow  unexpectedly  assisted  him.  It  was 
evidently  his  dinner  partner. 

"I  suppose  you  must  be  tired  after  your 
journey.  When  did  you  arrive  ?  " 

"Only  a  few  hours  ago,"  said  Paul. 

"And  I  dare  say  you  haven't  slept  since 
you  arrived.  One  does  n't  on  the  passage, 
you  know ;  the  twenty  hours  pass  so  quickly, 
and  the  experience  is  so  exciting  —  to  us 
at  least.  But  I  suppose  as  an  American 
you  are  used  to  it." 

Paul  gasped.  He  had  passively  accepted 
the  bodiless  conversation,  because  it  was  at 
least  intelligible !  But  now  1  Was  he 
going  mad? 


A  ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE  289 

She  evidently  noticed  his  silence.  "Never 
mind,"  she  continued,  "you  can  tell  me  all 
about  it  at  dinner.  Do  you  know  I  always 
think  that  this  sort  of  thing  —  what  we're 
doing  now,  —  this  ridiculous  formality  of  re- 
ception, —  which  I  suppose  is  after  all  only 
a  concession  to  our  English  force  of  habit, 
—  is  absurd !  We  ought  to  pass,  as  it  were, 
directly  from  our  houses  to  the  dinner-table. 
It  saves  time." 

" Yes  —  no  —  that  is  —  I'm  afraid  I 
don't  follow  you,"  stammered  Paul. 

There  was  a  slight  pout  in  her  voice  as 
she  replied:  "No  matter  now  —  we  must 
follow  them  —  for  our  host  is  moving  off 
with  Lady  Billingtree,  and  it 's  our  turn 
now." 

So  great  was  the  illusion  that  he  found 
himself  mechanically  offering  his  arm  as  he 
moved  through  the  empty  room  towards  the 
door.  Then  he  descended  the  staircase 
without  another  word,  preceded,  however, 
by  the  sound  of  his  host's  voice.  Following 
this  as  a  blind  man  might,  he  entered  the 
dining-room,  which  to  his  discomfiture  was 
as  empty  as  the  salon  above.  Still  follow- 
ing the  host's  voice,  he  dropped  into  a  chair 
before  the  empty  table,  wondering  what 


290  A  ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE 

variation  of  the  Barmecide  feast  was  in 
store  for  him.  Yet  the  hum  of  voices  from 
the  vacant  chairs  around  the  board  so 
strongly  impressed  him  that  he  could  almost 
believe  that  he  was  actually  at  dinner. 

"Are  you  seated?"  asked  the  charming 
voice  at  his  side. 

"Yes,"  a  little  wonderingly,  as  his  was 
the  only  seat  visibly  occupied. 

"I  am  so  glad  that  this  silly  ceremony  is 
over.  By  the  way,  where  are  you?" 

Paul  would  have  liked  to  answer,  "Lord 
only  knows!  "  but  he  reflected  that  it  might 
not  sound  polite.  "Where  am  I?>>  he 
feebly  repeated. 

"Yes;  where  are  you  dining?" 

It  seemed  a  cool  question  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, but  he  answered  promptly,  — 

"With  you." 

"Of  course,"  said  the  charming  voice; 
"but  where  are  you  eating  your  dinner?  " 

Considering  that  he  was  not  eating  any- 
thing, Paul  thought  this  cooler  still.  But 
he  answered  briefly,  "In  Upshire." 

"Oh!     At  your  uncle's?" 

"No,"  said  Paul  bluntly;  "in  the  next 
house." 

"Why,  that 's  Sir  William's  —  our  host's 


A   ROMANCE    OF   THE  LINE  291 

—  and  he  and  his  family  are  here  in  Lon- 
don. You  are  joking." 

"Listen!"  said  Paul  desperately.  Then 
in  a  voice  unconsciously  lowered  he  hur- 
riedly told  her  where  he  was  —  how  he  came 
there  —  the  empty  house  —  the  viewless 
company!  To  his  surprise  the  only  re- 
sponse was  a  musical  little  laugh.  But  the 
next  moment  her  voice  rose  higher  with  an 
unmistakable  concern  in  it,  apparently  ad- 
dressing their  invisible  host. 

"Oh,  Sir  William,  only  think  how  dread- 
ful. Here  's  poor  Mr.  Bunker,  alone  in  an 
empty  house,  which  he  has  mistaken  for 
his  uncle's  —  and  without  any  dinner!  " 

"Really;  dear,  dear!  How  provoking! 
But  how  does  he  happen  to  be  with  us? 
James,  how  is  this?  " 

"If  you  please,  Sir  William,"  said  a 
servant's  respectful  voice,  "Widdlestone  is 
in  the  circuit  and  is  switched  on  with  the 
others.  We  heard  that  a  gentleman's  lug- 
gage had  arrived  at  Widdlestone,  and  we 
telegraphed  for  the  rooms  to  be  made  ready, 
thinking  we  'd  have  her  ladyship's  orders 
later." 

A  single  gleam  of  intelligence  flashed 
upon  Paul.  His  luggage  —  yes,  had  been 


292  A   ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE 

sent  from  the  station  to  the  wrong  house, 
and  he  had  unwittingly  followed.  But 
these  voices!  whence  did  they  come?  And 
where  was  the  actual  dinner  at  which  his 
host  was  presiding?  It  clearly  was  not  at 
this  empty  table. 

"  See  that  he  has  everything  he  wants  at 
once,"  said  Sir  William;  "there  must  be 
some  one  there."  Then  his  voice  turned  in 
the  direction  of  Paul  again,  and  he  said 
laughingly,  "  Possess  your  soul  and  appetite 
in  patience  for  a  moment,  Mr.  Bunker; 
you  will  be  only  a  course  behind  us.  But 
we  are  lucky  in  having  your  company  — 
even  at  your  own  discomfort." 

Still  more- bewildered,  Paul  turned  to  his 
invisible  partner.  "May  I  ask  where  you 
are  dining?" 

"Certainly;  at  home  in  Curzon  Street," 
returned  the  pretty  voice.  "It  was  raining 
so,  I  did  not  go  out." 

"And  — Lord  Billington?  "  faltered 
Paul. 

"Oh,  he's  in  Scotland  —  at  his  own 
place." 

"Then,  in  fact,  nobody  is  dining  here  at 
all,"  said  Paul  desperately. 

There  was  a  slight  pause,  and  then  the 


A  ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE  293 

voice  responded,  with  a  touch  of  startled 
suggestion  in  it:  "Good  heavens,  Mr. 
Bunker!  Is  it  possible  you  don't  know 
we  're  dining  by  telephone?  " 

"By  what?" 

"Telephone.  Yes.  We 're  a  telephonic 
dinner-party.  We  are  dining  in  our  own 
houses ;  but,  being  all  friends,  we  're 
switched  on  to  each  other,  and  converse 
exactly  as  we  would  at  table.  It  saves  a 
great  trouble  and  expense,  for  any  one  of 
us  can  give  the  party,  and  the  poorest  can 
equal  the  most  extravagant.  People  who 
are  obliged  to  diet  can  partake  of  their  own 
slops  at  home,  and  yet  mingle  with  the 
gourmets  without  awkwardness  or  the  neces- 
sity of  apology.  We  are  spared  the  spec- 
tacle, at  least,  of  those  who  eat  and  drink 
too  much.  We  can  switch  off  a  bore  at 
once.  We  can  retire  when  we  are  fatigued, 
without  leaving  a  blank  space  before  the 
others.  And  all  this  without  saying  any- 
thing of  the  higher  spiritual  and  intellectual 
effect  —  freed  from  material  grossness  of 
appetite  and  show  —  which  the  dinner  party 
thus  attains.  But  you  are  surely  joking! 
You,  an  American,  and  not  know  it! 
Why,  it  comes  from  Boston.  Have  n't  you 


294  A  ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE 

read  that  book,  '  Jumping  a  Century '  ? 
It 's  by  an  American." 

A  strange  illumination  came  upon  Paul. 
"Where  had  he  heard  something  like  this 
before?  But  at  the  same  moment  his 
thoughts  were  diverted  by  the  material  en- 
trance of  a  footman,  bearing  a  silver  salver 
with  his  dinner.  It  was  part  of  his  singu- 
lar experience  that  the  visible  entrance  of 
this  real,  commonplace  mortal  —  the  only 
one  he  had  seen  —  in  the  midst  of  this 
voiceless  solitude  was  distinctly  unreal,  and 
had  all  the  effect  of  an  apparition.  He 
distrusted  it  and  the  dishes  before  him. 
But  his  lively  partner's  voice  was  now  ad- 
dressing an  unseen  occupant  of  the  next 
chair.  Had  she  got  tired  of  his  ignorance, 
or  was  it  feminine  tact  to  enable  him  to  eat 
something?  He  accepted  the  latter  hypo- 
thesis, and  tried  to  eat.  But  he  felt  himself 
following  the  fascinating  voice  in  all  the 
charm  of  its  youthful  and  spiritual  inflec- 
tions. Taking  advantage  of  its  momentary 
silence,  he  said  gently,  — 

"I  confess  my  ignorance,  and  am  willing 
to  admit  all  you  claim  for  this  wonderful 
invention.  But  do  you  think  it  compen- 
sates for  the  loss  of  the  individual  person  ? 


A  ROMANCE   OF   THE  LINE  295 

Take  my  own  case  —  if  you  will  not  think 
me  personal.  I  have  never  had  the  plea- 
sure of  seeing  you;  do  you  believe  that  I 
am  content  with  only  that  suggestion  of 
your  personality  which  the  satisfaction  of 
hearing  your  voice  affords  me?" 

There  was  a  pause,  and  then  a  very  mis' 
chievous  ring  in  the  voice  that  replied:  "It 
certainly  is  a  personal  question,  and  it  is 
another  blessing  of  this  invention  that 
you  '11  never  know  whether  I  am  blushing 
or  not;  but  I  forgive  you,  for  /  never  be- 
fore spoke  to  any  one  I  had  never  seen  — 
and  I  suppose  it 's  confusion.  But  do  you 
really  think  you  would  know  me  —  the  real 
one  —  any  better?  It  is  the  real  person 
who  thinks  and  speaks,  not  the  outward 
semblance  that  we  see,  which  very  often 
unfairly  either  attracts  or  repels  us?  We 
can  always  show  ourselves  at  our  best,  but 
we  must,  at  last,  reveal  our  true  colors 
through  our  thoughts  and  speech.  Is  n't  it 
better  to  begin  with  the  real  thing  first?" 

"I  hope,  at  least,  to  have  the  privilege 
of  judging  by  myself,"  said  Paul  gallantly. 
"You  will  not  be  so  cruel  as  not  to  let  me 
see  you  elsewhere,  otherwise  I  shall  feel  as 
if  I  were  in  some  dream,  and  will  certainly 


296  A  ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE 

be   opposed   to   your  preference   for  reali- 
ties." 

"I  am  not  certain  if  the  dream  would  not 
be  more  interesting  to  you,"  said  the  voice 
laughingly.  "But  I  think  your  hostess  is 
already  saying  '  good-by.'  You  know 
everybody  goes  at  once  at  this  kind  of 
party ;  the  ladies  don't  retire  first,  and  the 
gentlemen  join  them  afterwards.  In  an- 
other moment  we  '11  all  be  switched  off;  but 
Sir  William  wants  me  to  tell  you  that  his 
coachman  will  drive  you  to  your  uncle's, 
unless  you  prefer  to  try  and  make  yourself 
comfortable  for  the  night  here.  Good-by !  " 
The  voices  around  him  seemed  to  grow 
fainter,  and  then  utterly  cease.  The  lights 
suddenly  leaped  up,  went  out,  and  left  him 
in  complete  darkness.  He  attempted  to 
rise,  but  in  doing  so  overset  the  dishes  be- 
fore him,  which  slid  to  the  floor.  A  cold 
air  seemed  to  blow  across  his  feet.  The 
"good-by"  was  still  ringing  in  his  ears  as 
he  straightened  himself  to  find  he  was  in 
his  railway  carriage,  whose  door  had  just 
been  opened  for  a  young  lady  who  was  en- 
tering the  compartment  from  a  wayside  sta- 
">  tion.  "Good-by,"  she  repeated  to  the  friend 
who  was  seeing  her  off.  The  Writer  of 


A  ROMANCE   OF  THE  LINE  297 

Stories  hurriedly  straightened  himself,  gath- 
ered up  the  magazines  and  papers  that  had 
fallen  from  his  lap,  and  glanced  at  the  sta- 
tion walls.  The  old  illustrations  glanced 
back  at  him !  He  looked  at  his  watch ;  he 
had  been  asleep,  just  ten  minutes ! 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS    IN  SAN  FRAN- 
CISCO 

IT  is  but  just  to  the  respectable  memory 
of  San  Francisco  that  in  these  vagrant  re- 
collections I  should  deprecate  at  once  any 
suggestion  that  the  levity  of  my  title  de- 
scribed its  dominant  tone  at  any  period  of 
my  early  experiences.  On  the  contrary,  it 
was  a  singular  fact  that  while  the  rest  of 
California  was  swayed  by  an  easy,  careless 
unconventionalism,  or  swept  over  by  waves 
of  emotion  and  sentiment,  San  Francisco 
preserved  an  intensely  material  and  practi- 
cal attitude,  and  even  a  certain  austere 
morality.  I  do  not,  of  course,  allude  to 
the  brief  days  of  '49,  when  it  was  a  strag- 
gling beach  of  huts  and  stranded  hulks,  but 
to  the  earlier  stages  of  its  development  into 
the  metropolis  of  California.  Its  first  tot- 
tering steps  in  that  direction  were  marked 
by  a  distinct  gravity  and  decorum.  Even 
during  the  period  when  the  revolver  set- 
tled small  private  difficulties,  and  Vigilance 
Committees  adjudicated  larger  public  ones, 


an  unmistakable  seriousness  and  respecta- 
bility was  the  ruling  sign  of  its  governing 
class.  It  was  not  improbable  that  under 
the  reign  of  the  Committee  the  lawless  and 
vicious  class  were  more  appalled  by  the 
moral  spectacle  of  several  thousand  black- 
coated,  serious-minded  business  men  in  em- 
battled procession  than  by  mere  force  of 
arms,  and  one  "suspect"  —  a  prize-fighter 
—  is  known  to  have  committed  suicide  in 
his  cell  after  confrontation  with  his  grave 
and  passionless  shopkeeping  judges.  Even 
that  peculiar  quality  of  Californian  humor 
which  was  apt  to  mitigate  the  extravagances 
of  the  revolver  and  the  uncertainties  of 
poker  had  no  place  in  the  decorous  and  re- 
sponsible utterance  of  San  Francisco.  The 
press  was  sober,  materialistic,  practical  — 
when  it  was  not  severely  admonitory  of 
existing  evil;  the  few  smaller  papers  that 
indulged  in  levity  were  considered  libelous 
and  improper.  Fancy  was  displaced  by 
heavy  articles  on  the  revenues  of  the  State 
and  inducements  to  the  investment  of  cap- 
ital. Local  news  was  under  an  implied 
censorship  which  suppressed  anything  that 
might  tend  to  discourage  timid  or  cautious 
capital.  Episodes  of  romantic  lawlessness 


300    BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

or  pathetic  incidents  of  mining  life  were 
carefully  edited  —  with  the  comment  that 
these  things  belonged  to  the  past,  and  that 
life  and  property  were  now  "as  safe  in  San 
Francisco  as  in  New  York  or  London." 

Wonder-loving  visitors  in  quest  of  scenes 
characteristic  of  the  civilization  *were  coldly 
snubbed  with  this  assurance.  Fires,  floods, 
and  even  seismic  convulsions  were  subjected 
to  a  like  grimly  materialistic  optimism.  I 
have  a  vivid  recollection  of  a  ponderous 
editorial  on  one  of  the  severer  earthquakes, 
in  which  it  was  asserted  that  only  the  un- 
expectedness of  the  onset  prevented  San 
Francisco  from  meeting  it  in  a  way  that 
would  be  deterrent  of  all  future  attacks. 
The  unconsciousness  of  the  humor  was  only 
equaled  by  the  gravity  with  which  it  was 
received  by  the  whole  business  community. 
Strangely  enough,  this  grave  materialism 
flourished  side  by  side  with  —  and  was  even 
sustained  by  —  a  narrow  religious  strictness 
more  characteristic  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers 
of  a  past  century  than  the  Western  pioneers 
of  the  present.  San  Francisco  was  early 
a  city  of  churches  and  church  organizations 
to  which  the  leading  men  and  merchants 
belonged.  The  lax  Sundays  of  the  dying 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    301 

Spanish  race  seemed  only  to  provoke  a  re- 
vival of  the  rigors  of  the  Puritan  Sabbath. 
With  the  Spaniard  and  his  Sunday  after- 
noon bullfight  scarcely  an  hour  distant, 
the  San  Francisco  pulpit  thundered  against 
Sunday  picnics.  One  of  the  popular 
preachers,  declaiming  upon  the  practice  of 
Sunday  dinner-giving,  averred  that  when 
he  saw  a  guest  in  his  best  Sunday  clothes 
standing  shamelessly  upon  the  doorstep  of 
his  host,  he  felt  like  seizing  him  by  the 
shoulder  and  dragging  him  from  that  thresh- 
old of  perdition. 

Against  the  actual  heathen  the  feeling 
was  even  stronger,  and  reached  its  climax 
one  Sunday  when  a  Chinaman  was  stoned 
to  death  by  a  crowd  of  children  returning 
from  Sunday-school.  I  am  offering  these 
examples  with  no  ethical  purpose,  but 
merely  to  indicate  a  singular  contradictory 
condition  which  I  do  not  think  writers  of 
early  Calif ornian  history  have  fairly  re- 
corded. It  is  not  my  province  to  suggest 
any  theory  for  these  appalling  exceptions 
to  the  usual  good-humored  lawlessness  and 
extravagance  of  the  rest  of  the  State.  They 
may  have  been  essential  agencies  to  the 
growth  and  evolution  of  the  city.  They 


302    BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

were  undoubtedly  sincere.  The  impressions 
I  propose  to  give  of  certain  scenes  and  inci- 
dents of  my  early  experience  must,  there- 
fore, be  taken  as  purely  personal  and  Bohe- 
mian, and  their  selection  as  equally  indi- 
vidual and  vagrant.  I  am  writing  of  what 
interested  me  at  the  time,  though  not  per- 
haps of  what  was  more  generally  character- 
istic of  San  Francisco. 

I  had  been  there  a  week  —  an  idle  week, 
spent  in  listless  outlook  for  -employment; 
a  full  week  in  my  eager  absorption  of  the 
strange  life  around  me  and  a  photographic 
sensitiveness  to  certain  scenes  and  incidents 
of  those  days,  which  start  out  of  my  mem- 
ory to-day  as  freshly  as  the  day  they  im- 
pressed me. 

One  of  these  recollections  is  of  "steamer 
night,"  as  it  was  called,  —  the  night  of 
"steamer  day,"  —  preceding  the  departure 
of  the  mail  steamship  with  the  mails  for 
"home."  Indeed,  at  that  time  San  Fran- 
cisco may  be  said  to  have  lived  from  steamer 
day  to  steamer  day;  bills  were  made  due 
on  that  day,  interest  computed  to  that  pe- 
riod, and  accounts  settled.  The  next  day 
was  the  turning  of  a  new  leaf:  another 
essay  to  fortune,  another  inspiration  of  en- 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    303 

ergy.  So  recognized  was  the  fact  that  even 
ordinary  changes  of  condition,  social  and 
domestic,  were  put  aside  until  after  steamer 
day.  "  I  '11  see  what  I  can  do  after  next 
steamer  day  "  was  the  common  cautious  or 
hopeful  formula.  It  was  the  "Saturday 
night "  of  many  a  wage-earner  —  and  to 
him  a  night  of  festivity.  The  thorough- 
fares were  animated  and  crowded;  the 
saloons  and  theatres  full.  I  can  recall  my- 
self at  such  times  wandering  along  the  City 
Front,  as  the  business  part  of  San  Fran- 
cisco was  then  known.  Here  the  lights 
were  burning  all  night,  the  first  streaks  of 
dawn  finding  the  merchants  still  at  their 
counting-house  desks.  I  remember  the  dim 
lines  of  warehouses  lining  the  insecure 
wharves  of  rotten  piles,  half  filled  in  —  that 
had  ceased  to  be  wharves,  but  had  not  yet 
become  streets,  —  their  treacherous  yawning 
depths,  with  the  uncertain  gleam  of  tarlike 
mud  below,  at  times  still  vocal  with  the  lap 
and  gurgle  of  the  tide.  I  remember  the 
weird  stories  of  disappearing  men  found 
afterward  imbedded  in  the  ooze  in  which 
they  had  fallen  and  gasped  their  life  away. 
I  remember  the  two  or  three  ships,  still  left 
standing  where  they  were  beached  a  year 


304    BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

or  two  before,  built  in  between  warehouses, 
their  bows  projecting  into  the  roadway. 
There  was  the  dignity  of  the  sea  and  its 
boundless  freedom  in  their  beautiful  curves, 
which  the  abutting  houses  could  not  destroy, 
and  even  something  of  the  sea's  loneliness 
in  the  far-spaced  ports  and  cabin  windows 
lit  up  by  the  lamps  of  the  prosaic  landsmen 
who  plied  their  trades  behind  them.  One 
of  these  ships,  transformed  into  a  hotel, 
retained  its  name,  the  Niantic,  and  part 
of  its  characteristic  interior  unchanged.  I 
remember  these  ships'  old  tenants  —  the 
rats  —  who  had  increased  and  multiplied  to 
such  an  extent  that  at  night  they  fearlessly 
crossed  the  wayfarer's  path  at  every  turn, 
and  even  invaded  the  gilded  saloons  of 
Montgomery  Street.  In  the  Niantic  their 
pit-a-pat  was  met  on  every  staircase,  and 
it  was  said  that  sometimes  in  an  excess  of 
sociability  they  accompanied  the  traveler 
to  his  room.  In  the  early  "cloth-and- 
papered "  houses  —  so  called  because  the 
ceilings  were  not  plastered,  but  simply  cov- 
ered by  stretched  and  whitewashed  cloth  — 
their  scamperings  were  plainly  indicated  in 
zigzag  movements  of  the  sagging  cloth,  or 
they  became  actually  visible  by  finally  drop- 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    305 

ping  through  the  holes  they  had  worn  in  it ! 
I  remember  the  house  whose  foundations 
were  made  of  boxes  of  plug  tobacco  —  part 
of  a  jettisoned  cargo  —  used  instead  of  more 
expensive  lumber;  and  the  adjacent  ware- 
house where  the  trunks  of  the  early  and 
forgotten  "forty-niners"  were  stored,  and 
—  never  claimed  by  their  dead  or  missing 
owners  —  were  finally  sold  at  auction.  I 
remember  the  strong  breath  of  the  sea  over 
all,  and  the  constant  onset  of  the  trade 
winds  which  helped  to  disinfect  the  deposit 
of  dirt  and  grime,  decay  and  wreckage, 
which  were  stirred  up  in  the  later  evolutions 
of  the  city. 

Or  I  recall,  with  the  same  sense  of  youth- 
ful satisfaction  and  unabated  wonder,  my 
wanderings  through  the  Spanish  Quarter, 
where  three  centuries  of  quaint  customs, 
speech,  and  dress  were  still  preserved; 
where  the  proverbs  of  Sancho  Panza  were 
still  spoken  in  the  language  of  Cervantes, 
and  the  high-flown  illusions  of  the  La  Man- 
chian  knight  still  a  part  of  the  Spanish 
Californian  hidalgo's  dream.  I  recall  the 
more  modern  "Greaser,"  or  Mexican  —  his 
index  finger  steeped  in  cigarette  stains ;  his 
velvet  jacket  and  his  crimson  sash;  the 


306    BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

many -flounced  skirt  and  lace  manta  of  his 
women,  and  their  caressing  intonations  — 
the  one  musical  utterance  of  the  whole  hard- 
voiced  city.  I  suppose  I  had  a  boy's  diges- 
tion and  bluntness  of  taste  in  those  days, 
for  the  combined  odor  of  tobacco,  burned 
paper,  and  garlic,  which  marked  that  melo- 
dious breath,  did  not  affect  me. 

Perhaps  from  my  Puritan  training  I  ex- 
perienced a  more  fearful  joy  in  the  gam- 
bling saloons.  They  were  the  largest  and 
most  comfortable,  even  as  they  were  the 
most  expensively  decorated  rooms  in  San 
Francisco.  Here  again  the  gravity  and  de- 
corum which  I  have  already  alluded  to  were 
present  at  that  earlier  period  —  though  per- 
haps from  concentration  of  another  kind. 
People  staked  and  lost  their  last  dollar  with 
a  calm  solemnity  and  a  resignation  that  was 
almost  Christian.  The  oaths,  exclamations, 
and  feverish  interruptions  which  often  char- 
acterized more  dignified  assemblies  were 
absent  here.  There  was  no  room  for  the 
lesser  vices;  there  was  little  or  no  drunken- 
ness; the  gaudily  dressed  and  painted  wo- 
men who  presided  over  the  wheels  of  for- 
tune or  performed  on  the  harp  and  piano 
attracted  no  attention  from  those  ascetic 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    307 

players.  The  man  who  had  won  ten  thou- 
sand dollars  and  the  man  who  had  lost 
everything  rose  from  the  table  with  equal 
silence  and  imperturbability.  /  never  wit- 
nessed any  tragic  sequel  to  those  losses;  I 
never  heard  of  any  suicide  on  account  of 
them.  Neither  can  I  recall  any  quarrel  or 
murder  directly  attributable  to  this  kind  of 
gambling.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
these  public  games  were  chiefly  rouge  et 
noir,  monte,  faro,  or  roulette,  in  which  the 
antagonist  was  Fate,  Chance,  Method,  or 
the  impersonal  "bank,"  which  was  supposed 
to  represent  them  all;  there  was  no  indi- 
vidual opposition  or  rivalry ;  nobody  chal- 
lenged the  decision  of  the  "croupier,"  or 
dealer. 

I  remember  a  conversation  at  the  door 
of  one  saloon  which  was  as  characteristic 
for  its  brevity  as  it  was  a  type  of  the  pre- 
vailing stoicism.  "Hello!"  said  a  depart- 
ing miner,  as  he  recognized  a  brother  miner 
coming  in,  "when  did  you  come  down?" 
"This  morning,"  was  the  reply.  "Made 
a  strike  on  the  bar?  "  suggested  the  first 
speaker.  "You  bet!"  said  the  other,  and 
passed  in.  I  chanced  an  hour  later  to  be 
at  the  same  place  as  they  met  again  —  their 


308    BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

relative  positions  changed.  "Hello!  Whar 
now?"  said  the  incomer.  "Back  to  the 
bar."  "Cleaned  out?"  "You  bet!"  Not 
a  word  more  explained  a  common  situation. 
My  first  youthful  experience  at  those 
tables  was  au  accidental  one.  I  was  watch- 
ing roulette  one  evening,  intensely  absorbed 
in  the  mere  movement  of  the  players. 
Either  they  were  so  preoccupied  with  the 
game,  or  I  was  really  older  looking  than 
my  actual  years,  but  a  bystander  laid  his 
hand  familiarly  on  my  shoulder,  and  said, 
as  to  an  ordinary  habitue,  "Ef  you  're  not 
chippin'  in  yourself,  pardner,  s'pose  you 
give  me  a  show."  Now  I  honestly  believe 
that  up  to  that  moment  I  had  no  intention, 
nor  even  a  desire,  to  try  my  own  fortune. 
But  in  the  embarrassment  of  the  sudden 
address  I  put  my  hand  in  my  pocket,  drew 
out  a  coin,  and  laid  it,  with  an  attempt  at 
carelessness,  but  a  vivid  consciousness  that 
I  was  blushing,  upon  a  vacant  number. 
To  my  horror  I  saw  that  I  had  put  down 
a  large  coin  —  the  bulk  of  my  possessions ! 
I  did  not  flinch,  however;  I  think  any  boy 
who  reads  this  will  understand  my  feeling ; 
it  was  not  only  my  coin  but  my  manhood 
at  stake.  I  gazed  with  a  miserable  show 


BOHEMIAN  DATS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    309 

of  indifference  at  the  players,  at  the  chan- 
delier—  anywhere  but  at  the  dreadful  ball 
spinning  round  the  wheel.  There  was  a 
pause;  the  game  was  declare^,  the  rake 
rattled  up  and  down,  but  still  I  did  not 
look  at  the  table.  Indeed,  in  my  inexpe- 
rience of  the  game  and  my  embarrassment, 
I  doubt  if  I  should  have  known  if  I  had 
won  or  not.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  that 
I  should  lose,  but  I  must  do  so  like  a  man, 
and,  above  all,  without  giving  the  least  sus- 
picion that  I  was  a  greenhorn.  I  even  af- 
fected to  be  listening  to  the  music.  The 
wheel  spun  again;  the  game  was  declared, 
the  rake  was  busy,  but  I  did  not  move.  At 
last  the  man  I  had  displaced  touched  me 
on  the  arm  and  whispered,  "Better  make 
a  straddle  and  divide  your  stake  this  time." 
I  did  not  understand  him,  but  as  I  saw  he 
was  looking  at  the  board,  I  was  obliged  to 
look,  too.  I  drew  back  dazed  and  bewil- 
dered !  Where  my  coin  had  lain  a  moment 
before  was  a  glittering  heap  of  gold. 

My  stake  had  doubled,  quadrupled,  and 
doubled  again.  I  did  not  know  how  much 
then-- 1  do  not  know  now  —  it  may  have 
been  not  more  than  three  or  four  hundred 
dollars  —  but  it  dazzled  and  frightened  me. 


310    BOHEMIAN  DATS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

"Make  your  game,  gentlemen,"  said  the 
croupier  monotonously.  I  thought  he 
looked  at  me  —  indeed,  everybody  seemed 
to  be  looking  at  me  —  and  my  companion 
repeated  his  warning.  But  here  I  must 
again  appeal  to  the  boyish  reader  in  defense 
of  my  idiotic  obstinacy.  To  have  taken 
advice  would  have  shown  my  youth.  I 
shook  my  head  —  I  could  not  trust  my 
voice.  I  smiled,  but  with  a  sinking  heart, 
and  let  my  stake  remain.  The  ball  again 
sped  round  the  wheel,  and  stopped.  There 
was  a  pause.  The  croupier  indolently  ad- 
vanced his  rake  and  swept  my  whole  pile 
with  others  into  the  bank !  I  had  lost  it  all. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  difficult  for  me  to  ex- 
plain why  I  actually  felt  relieved,  and  even 
to  some  extent  triumphant,  but  I  seemed  to 
have  asserted  my  grown-up  independence  — 
possibly  at  the  cost  of  reducing  the  number 
of  my  meals  for  days ;  but  what  of  that !  I 
was  a  man !  I  wish  I  could  say  that  it  was 
a  lesson  to  me.  I  am  afraid  it  was  not. 
It  was  true  that  I  did  not  gamble  again, 
but  then  I  had  no  especial  desire  to  —  and 
there  was  no  temptation.  I  am  afraid  it 
was  an  incident  without  a  moral.  Yet  it 
had  one  touch  characteristic  of  the  period 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    311 

which  I  like  to  remember.  The  man  who 
had  spoken  to  me,  I  think,  suddenly  real- 
ized, at  the  moment  of  my  disastrous  coup, 
the  fact  of  my  extreme  youth.  He  moved 
toward  the  banker,  and  leaning  over  him 
whispered  a  few  words.  The  banker  looked 
up,  half  impatiently,  half  kindly  —  his 
hand  straying  tentatively  toward  the  pile 
of  coin.  I  instinctively  knew  what  he 
meant,  and,  summoning  my  determination, 
met  his  eyes  with  all  the  indifference  I  could 
assume,  and  walked  away. 

I  had  at  that  period  a  small  room  at  the 
top  of  a  house  owned  by  a  distant  relation 
—  a  second  or  third  cousin,  I  think.  He 
was  a  man  of  independent  and  original 
character,  had  a  Ulyssean  experience  of 
men  and  cities,  and  an  old  English  name 
of  which  he  was  proud.  While  in  London 
he  had  procured  from  the  Heralds'  College 
his  family  arms,  whose  crest  was  stamped 
upon  a  quantity  of  plate  he  had  brought 
with  him  to  California.  The  plate,  to- 
gether with  an  exceptionally  good  cook, 
which  he  had  also  brought,  and  his  own 
epicurean  tastes,  he  utilized  in  the  usual 
practical  Californian  fashion  by  starting  a 
rather  expensive  half-club,  half-restaurant 


312    BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

in  the  lower  part  of  the  building  —  which 
he  ruled  somewhat  autocratically,  as  became 
his  crest.  The  restaurant  was  too  expen- 
sive for  me  to  patronize,  but  I  saw  many 
of  its  frequenters  as  well  as  those  who  had 
rooms  at  the  club.  They  were  men  of  very 
distinct  personality;  a  few  celebrated,  and 
nearly  all  notorious.  They  represented  a 
Bohemianism  —  if  such  it  could  be  called 
—  less  innocent  than  my  later  experiences. 
I  remember,  however,  one  handsome  young 
fellow  whom  I  used  to  meet  occasionally  on 
the  staircase,  who  captured  my  youthful 
fancy.  I  met  him  only  at  midday,  as  he 
did  not  rise  till  late,  and  this  fact,  with  a 
certain  scrupulous  elegance  and  neatness  in 
his  dress,  ought  to  have  made  me  suspect 
that  he  was  a  gambler.  In  my  inexpe- 
rience it  only  invested  him  with  a  certain 
romantic  mystery. 

One  morning  as  I  was  going  out  to  my 
very  early  breakfast  at  a  cheap  Italian  cafe 
on  Long  Wharf,  I  was  surprised  to  find 
him  also  descending  the  staircase.  He  was 
scrupulously  dressed  even  at  that  early 
hour,  but  I  was  struck  by  the  fact  that  he 
was  all  in  black,  and  his  slight  figure,  but- 
toned to  the  throat  in  a  tightly  fitting  fro."k 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    313 

coat,  gave,  I  fancied,  a  singular  melancholy 
to  his  pale  Southern  face.  Nevertheless, 
he  greeted  me  with  more  than  his  usual 
serene  cordiality,  and  I  remembered  that 
he  looked  up  with  a  half-puzzled,  half- 
amused  expression  at  the  rosy  morning  sky 
as  he  walked  a  few  steps  with  me  down  the 
deserted  street.  I  could  not  help  saying 
that  I  was  astonished  to  see  him  up  so  early, 
and  he  admitted  that  it  was  a  break  in  his 
usual  habits,  but  added  with  a  smiling  sig- 
nificance I  afterwards  remembered  that  it 
was  "an  even  chance  if  he  did  it  again." 
As  we  neared  the  street  corner  a  man  in  a 
buggy  drove  up  impatiently.  In  spite  of 
the  driver's  evident  haste,  my  handsome 
acquaintance  got  in  leisurely,  and,  lifting 
his  glossy  hat  to  me  with  a  pleasant  smile, 
was  driven  away.  I  have  a  very  lasting 
recollection  of  his  face  and  figure  as  the 
buggy  disappeared  down  the  empty  street. 
I  never  saw  him  again.  It  was  not  until 
a  week  later  that  I  knew  that  an  hour  after 
he  left  me  that  morning  he  was  lying  dead 
in  a  little  hollow  behind  the  Mission  Dolores 
—  shot  through  the  heart  in  a  duel  for 
which  he  had  risen  so  early. 

I  recall  another  incident  of  that  period, 


314    BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

equally  characteristic,  but  happily  less 
tragic  in  sequel.  I  was  in  the  restaurant 
one  morning  talking  to  my  cousin  when  a 
man  entered  hastily  and  said  something  to 
him  in  a  hurried  whisper.  My  cousin  con- 
tracted his  eyebrows  and  uttered  a  sup- 
pressed oath.  Then  with  a  gesture  of 
warning  to  the  man  he  crossed  the  room 
quietly  to  a  table  where  a  regular  habitue 
of  the  restaurant  was  lazily  finishing  his 
breakfast.  A  large  silver  coffee-pot  with 
a  stiff  wooden  handle  stood  on  the  table 
before  him.  My  cousin  leaned  over  the 
guest  familiarly  and  apparently  made  some 
hospitable  inquiry  as  to  his  wants,  with  his 
hand  resting  lightly  on  the  coffee-pot  handle. 
Then  —  possibly  because,  my  curiosity  hav- 
ing been  excited,  I  was  watching  him  more 
intently  than  the  others  —  /  saw  what  prob- 
ably no  one  else  saw  —  that  he  deliberately 
upset  the  coffee-pot  and  its  contents  over 
the  guest's  shirt  and  waistcoat.  As  the 
victim  sprang  up  with  an  exclamation,  my 
cousin  overwhelmed  him  with  apologies  for 
his  carelessness,  and,  with  protestations  of 
sorrow  for  the  accident,  actually  insisted 
upon  dragging  the  man  upstairs  into  his 
own  private  room,  where  he  furnished  him 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    315 

with  a  shirt  and  waistcoat  of  his  own.  The 
side  door  had  scarcely  closed  upon  them, 
and  I  was  still  lost  in  wonder  at  what  I  had 
seen,  when  a  man  entered  from  the  street. 
He  was  one  of  the  desperate  set  I  have  al- 
ready spoken  of,  and  thoroughly  well  known 
to  those  present.  He  cast  a  glance  around 
the  room,  nodded  to  one  or  two  of  the 
guests,  and  then  walked  to  a  side  table  and 
took  up  a  newspaper.  I  was  conscious  at 
once  that  a  singular  constraint  had  come 
over  the  other  guests  —  a  nervous  awkward- 
ness that  at  last  seemed  to  make  itself 
known  to  the  man  himself,  who,  after  an 
affected  yawn  or  two,  laid  down  the  paper 
and  walked  out. 

"That  was  a  mighty  close  call,"  said  one 
of  the  guests  with  a  sigh  of  relief. 

"You  bet!  And  that  coffee-pot  spill  was 
the  luckiest  kind  of  accident  for  Peters," 
returned  another. 

"For  both,"  added  the  first  speaker,  "for 
Peters  was  armed  too,  and  would  have  seen 
him  come  in !  " 

A  word  or  two  explained  all.  Peters 
and  the  last  comer  had  quarreled  a  day  or 
two  before,  and  had  separated  with  the  in- 
tention to  "shoot  on  sight,"  that  is,  wher- 


316    BOHEMIAN  DAYS    IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

ever  they  met,  —  a  form  of  duel  common  to 
those  days.  The  accidental  meeting  in  the 
restaurant  would  have  been  the  occasion, 
with  the  usual  sanguinary  consequence, 
but  for  the  word  of  warning  given  to  my 
cousin  by  a  passer-by  who  knew  that  Peters' 
antagonist  was  coming  to  the  restaurant  to 
look  at  the  papers.  Had  my  cousin  re- 
peated the  warning  to  Peters  himself  he 
would  only  have  prepared  him  for  the  con- 
flict —  which  he  would  not  have  shirked  — 
and  so  precipitated  the  affray. 

The  ruse  of  upsetting  the  coffee-pot, 
which  everybody  but  myself  thought  an 
accident,  was  to  get  him  out  of  the  room 
before  the  other  entered.  I  was  too  young 
then  to  venture  to  intrude  upon  my  cousin's 
secrets,  but  two  or  three  years  afterwards  I 
taxed  him  with  the  trick  and  he  admitted 
it  regretfully.  1  believe  that  a  strict  inter- 
pretation of  the  "code"  would  have  con- 
demned his  act  as  unsportsmanlike,  if  not 
unfair! 

I  recall  another  incident,  connected  with 
the  building  equally  characteristic  of  the 
period.  The  United  States  Branch  Mint 
stood  very  near  it,  and  its  tall,  factory-like 
chimneys  overshadowed  my  cousin's  roof. 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    317 

Some  scandal  had  arisen  from  an  alleged 
leakage  of  gold  in  the  manipulation  of  that 
metal  during  the  various  processes  of  smelt- 
ing and  refining.  One  of  the  excuses  offered 
was  the  volatilization  of  the  pracious  metal 
and  its  escape  through  the  draft  of  the  tall 
chimneys.  All  San  Francisco  laughed  at 
this  explanation  until  it  learned  that  a  cor- 
roboration  of  the  theory  had  been  estab- 
lished by  an  assay  of  the  dust  and  grime 
of  the  roofs  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Mint. 
These  had  yielded  distinct  traces  of  gold. 
San  Francisco  stopped  laughing,  and  that 
portion  of  it  which  had  roofs  in  the  neigh- 
borhood at  once  began  prospecting.  Claims 
were  staked  out  on  these  airy  placers,  and 
my  cousin's  roof,  being  the  very  next  one 
to  the  chimney,  and  presumably  "in  the 
lead,"  was  disposed  of  to  a  speculative  com- 
pany for  a  considerable  sum.  I  remember 
my  cousin  telling  me  the  story  —  for  the 
occurrence  was  quite  recent  —  and  taking 
me  with  him  to  the  roof  to  explain  it,  but 
I  am  afraid  I  was  more  attracted  by  the 
mystery  of  the  closely  guarded  building,  and 
the  strangely  tinted  smoke  which  arose  from 
this  temple  where  money  was  actually  being 
"made,"  than  by  anything  else.  Nor  did 


318    BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

I  dream  as  I  stood  there  —  a  very  lanky, 
open-mouthed  youth  —  that  only  three  or 
four  years  later  I  should  be  the  secretary 
of  its  superintendent.  In  my  more  adven- 
turous ambition  I  am  afraid  I  would  have 
accepted  the  suggestion  half-heartedly. 
Merely  to  have  helped  to  stamp  the  gold 
which  other  people  had  adventurously  found 
was  by  no  means  a  part  of  my  youthful 
dreams. 

At  the  time  of  these  earlier  impressions 
the  Chinese  had  not  yet  become  the  recog- 
nized factors  in  the  domestic  and  business 
economy  of  the  city  which  they  had  come 
to  be  when  I  returned  from  the  mines  three 
years  later.  Yet  they  were  even  then  a 
more  remarkable  and  picturesque  contrast 
to  the  bustling,  breathless,  and  brand-new 
life  of  San  Francisco  than  the  Spaniard. 
The  latter  seldom  flaunted  his  faded  dignity 
in  the  principal  thoroughfares.  "John" 
was  to  be  met  everywhere.  It  was  a  com- 
mon thing  to  see  a  long  file  of  sampan  coo- 
lies carrying  their  baskets  slung  between 
them,  on  poles,  jostling  a  modern,  well-- 
dressed crowd  in  Montgomery  Street,  or 
to  get  a  whiff  of  their  burned  punk  in  the 
side  streets;  while  the  road  leading  to  their 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    319 

temporary  burial-ground  at  Lone  Mountain 
was  littered  with  slips  of  colored  paper 
scattered  from  their  funerals.  They  brought 
an  atmosphere  of  the  Arabian  Nights  into 
the  hard,  modern  civilization;  their  shops 
—  not  always  confined  at  that  time  to  a 
Chinese  quarter  —  were  replicas  of  the  ba- 
zaars of  Canton  and  Peking,  with  their 
quaint  display  of  little  dishes  on  which  tid- 
bits of  food  delicacies  were  exposed  for 
sale,  all  of  the  dimensions  and  unreality  of 
a  doll's  kitchen  or  a  child's  housekeeping. 

They  were  a  revelation  to  the  Eastern 
immigrant,  whose  preconceived  ideas  of 
them  were  borrowed  from  the  ballet  or  pan- 
tomime ;  they  did  not  wear  scalloped  drawers 
and  hats  with  jingling  bells  on  their  points, 
nor  did  I  ever  see  them  dance  with  their 
forefingers  vertically  extended.  They  were 
always  neatly  dressed,  even  the  commonest 
of  coolies,  and  their  festive  dresses  were 
marvels.  As  traders  they  were  grave  and 
patient;  as  servants  they  were  sad  and 
civil,  and  all  were  singularly  infantine  in 
their  natural  simplicity.  The  living  repre- 
sentatives of  the  oldest  civilization  in  the 
world,  they  seemed  like  children.  Yet  they 
kept  their  beliefs  and  sympathies  to  them- 


320    BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

selves,  never  fraternizing  with  the  fanqul, 
or  foreign  devil,  or  losing  their  singular 
racial  qualities.  They  indulged  in  their 
own  peculiar  habits;  of  their  social  and 
inner  life,  San  Francisco  knew  but  little 
and  cared  less.  Even  at  this  early  period, 
and  before  I  came  to  know  them  more  in- 
timately, I  remember  an  incident  of  their 
daring  fidelity  to  their  own  customs  that 
was  accidentally  revealed  to  me.  I  had  be- 
come acquainted  with  a  Chinese  youth  of 
about  my  own  age,  as  I  imagined,  —  al- 
though from  mere  outward  appearance  it 
was  generally  impossible  to  judge  of  a 
Chinaman's  age  between  the  limits  of  sev- 
enteen and  forty  years,  —  and  he  had,  in  a 
burst  of  confidence,  taken  me  to  see  some 
characteristic  sights  in  a  Chinese  warehouse 
within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  Plaza.  I  was 
struck  by  the  singular  circumstance  that 
while  the  warehouse  was  an  erection  of 
wood  in  the  ordinary  hasty  Californian 
style,  there  were  certain  brick  and  stone 
divisions  in  its  interior,  like  small  rooms 
or  closets,  evidently  added  by  the  China- 
men tenants.  My  companion  stopped  be- 
fore a  long,  very  narrow  entrance,  a  mere 
longitudinal  slit  in  the  brick  wall,  and  with 


BOHEMIAN  DATS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    321 

a  wink  of  infantine  deviltry  motioned  me 
to  look  inside.  I  did  so,  and  saw  a  room, 
really  a  cell,  of  fair  height  but  scarcely  six 
feet  square,  and  barely  able  to  contain  a 
rude,  slanting  couch  of  stone  covered  with 
matting,  on  which  lay,  at  a  painful  angle, 
a  richly  dressed  Chinaman.  A  single 
glance  at  his  dull,  staring,  abstracted  eyes 
and  half -opened  mouth  showed  me  he  was 
in  an  opium  trance.  This  was  not  in  itself 
a  novel  sight,  and  I  was  moving  away  when 
I  was  suddenly  startled  by  the  appearance 
of  his  hands,  which  were  stretched  helplessly 
before  him  on  his  body,  and  at  first  sight 
seemed  to  be  in  a  kind  of  wicker  cage. 

I  then  saw  that  his  finger-nails  were 
seven  or  eight  inches  long,  and  were  sup- 
ported by  bamboo  splints.  Indeed,  they 
were  no  longer  human  nails,  but  twisted 
and  distorted  quills,  giving  him  the  appear- 
ance of  having  gigantic  claws.  "Velly  big 
Chinaman,"  whispered  my  cheerful  friend; 
"  first-chop  man  —  high  classee  —  no  can 
washee  —  no  can  eat  —  no  dlinke,  no  catchee 
him  own  glub  allee  same  nothee  man  — 
China  boy  must  catchee  glub  for  him,  allee 
time !  Oh,  him  first-chop  man  —  you  bet- 
tee!" 


322    BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

I  had  heard  of  this  singular  custom  of 
indicating  caste  before,  and  was  amazed  and 
disgusted,  but  I  was  not  prepared  for  what 
followed.  My  companion,  evidently  think- 
ing he  had  impressed  me,  grew  more  reck- 
less as  showman,  and  saying  to  me,  "Now 
me  showee  you  one  funny  thing  —  heap 
makee  you  laugh,"  led  me  hurriedly  across 
a  little  courtyard  swarming  with  chickens 
and  rabbits,  when  he  stopped  before  an- 
other inclosure.  Suddenly  brushing  past 
an  astonished  Chinaman  who  seemed  to  be 
standing  guard,  he  thrust  me  into  the  inclo- 
sure in  front  of  a  most  extraordinary  object. 
It  was  a  Chinaman,  wearing  a  huge,  square, 
wooden  frame  fastened  around  his  neck  like 
a  collar,  and  fitting  so  tightly  and  rigidly 
that  the  flesh  rose  in  puffy  weals  around  his 
cheeks.  He  was  chained  to  a  post,  although 
it  was  as  impossible  for  him  to  have  escaped 
with  his  wooden  cage  through  the  narrow 
doorway  as  it  was  for  him  to  lie  down  and 
rest  in  it.  Yet  I  am  bound  to  say  that  his 
eyes  and  face  expressed  nothing  but  apathy, 
and  there  was  no  appeal  to  the  sympathy 
of  the  stranger.  My  companion  said  hur- 
riedly, — 

"Velly    bad    man;    stealee    heap    from 


BOHEMIAN  DATS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    323 

Chinamen,"  and  then,  apparently  alarmed 
at  his  own  indiscreet  intrusion,  hustled  me 
away  as  quickly  as  possible  amid  a  shrill 
cackling  of  protestation  from  a  few  of  his 
own  countrymen  who  had  joined  the  one 
who  was  keeping  guard.  In  another  mo- 
ment we  were  in  the  street  again  —  scarce 
a  step  from  the  Plaza,  in  the  full  light  of 
Western  civilization  —  not  a  stone's  throw 
from  the  courts  of  justice. 

My  companion  took  to  his  heels  and  left 
me  standing  there  bewildered  and  indig- 
nant. I  could  not  rest  until  I  had  told  my 
story,  but  without  betraying  my  companion, 
to  an  elder  acquaintance,  who  laid  the  facts 
before  the  police  authorities.  I  had  ex- 
pected to  be  closely  cross-examined  —  to  be 
doubted  —  to  be  disbelieved.  To  my  sur- 
prise, I  was  told  that  the  police  had  already 
cognizance  of  similar  cases  of  illegal  and 
barbarous  punishments,  but  that  the  victims 
themselves  refused  to  testify  against  their 
countrymen  —  and  it  was  impossible  to  con- 
vict or  even  to  identify  them.  "A  white 
man  can't  tell  one  Chinese  from  another, 
and  there  are  always  a  dozen  of  'em  ready 
to  swear  that  the  man  you  've  got  isn't  the 
one."  I  was  startled  to  reflect  that  I,  too, 


324    BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

could  not  have  conscientiously  sworn  to 
either  jailor  or  the  tortured  prisoner  —  or 
perhaps  even  to  my  cheerful  companion. 
The  police,  on  some  pretext,  made  a  raid 
upon  the  premises  a  day  or  two  afterwards, 
but  without  result.  I  wondered  if  they  had 
caught  sight  of  the  high-class,  first-chop 
individual,  with  the  helplessly  outstretched 
fingers,  as  that  story  I  had  kept  to  myself. 

But  these  barbaric  vestiges  in  John 
Chinaman's  habits  did  not  affect  his  rela- 
tions with  the  San  Franciscans.  He  was 
singularly  peaceful,  docile,  and  harmless  as 
a  servant,  and,  with  rare  exceptions,  honest 
and  temperate.  If  he  sometimes  matched 
cunning  with  cunning,  it  was  the  flattery 
of  imitation.  He  did  most  of  the  menial 
work  of  San  Francisco,  and  did  it  cleanly. 
Except  that  he  exhaled  a  peculiar  druglike 
odor,  he  was  not  personally  offensive  in 
domestic  contact,  and  by  virtue  of  being 
the  recognized  laundryman  of  the  whole 
community  his  own  blouses  were  always 
freshly  washed  and  ironed.  His  conversa- 
tional reserve  arose,  not  from  his  having  to 
deal  with  an  unfamiliar  language,  —  for  he 
had  picked  up  a  picturesque  and  varied 
vocabulary  with  ease,  —  but  from  his  natural 


temperament.  He  was  devoid  of  curiosity, 
and  utterly  unimpressed  by  anything  but 
the  purely  business  concerns  of  those  he 
served.  Domestic  secrets  were  safe  with 
him;  his  indifference  to  your  thoughts,  ac- 
tions, and  feelings  had  all  the  contempt 
which  his  three  thousand  years  of  history 
and  his  innate  belief  in  your  inferiority 
seemed  to  justify.  He  was  blind  and  deaf 
in  your  household  because  you  did  n't  inter- 
est him  in  the  least.  It  was  said  that  a 
gentleman,  who  wished  to  test  his  impas- 
siveness,  arranged  with  his  wife  to  come 
home  one  day  and,  in  the  hearing  of  his 
Chinese  waiter  —  who  was  more  than  usually 
intelligent  —  to  disclose  with  well-simulated 
emotion  the  details  of  a  murder  he  had  just 
committed.  He  did  so.  The  Chinaman 
heard  it  without  a  sign  of  horror  or  atten- 
tion even  to  the  lifting  of  an  eyelid,  but 
continued  his  duties  unconcerned.  Unfor- 
tunately, the  gentleman,  in  order  to  increase 
the  horror  of  the  situation,  added  that  now 
there  was  nothing  left  for  him  but  to  cut 
his  throat.  At  this  John  quietly  left  the 
room.  The  gentleman  was  delighted  at  the 
success  of  his  ruse  until  the  door  reopened 
and  John  reappeared  with  his  master's 


326    BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

razor,  which  he  quietly  slipped  —  as  if  it 
had  been  a  forgotten  fork  —  beside  his  mas- 
ter's plate,  and  calmly  resumed  his  serving. 
I  have  always  considered  this  story  to  be 
quite  as  improbable  as  it  was  inartistic, 
from  its  tacit  admission  of  a  certain  interest 
on  the  part  of  the  Chinaman.  /  never 
knew  one  who  would  have  been  sufficiently 
concerned  to  go  for  the  razor. 

His  taciturnity  and  reticence  may  have 
been  confounded  with  rudeness  of  address, 
although  he  was  always  civil  enough.  "I 
see  you  have  listened  to  me  and  done  ex- 
actly what  I  told  you,"  said  a  lady,  com- 
mending some  performance  of  her  servant 
after  a  previous  lengthy  lecture;  "that's 
very  nice."  "Yes,"  said  John  calmly,  "you 
talkee  allee  time;  talkee  allee  too  much." 
"I  always  find  Ling  very  polite,"  said  an- 
other lady,  speaking  of  her  cook,  "but  I 
wish  he  did  not  always  say  to  me,  '  Good- 
night, John,'  in  a  high  falsetto  voice." 
She  had  not  recognized  the  fact  that  he  was 
simply  repeating  her  own  salutation  with 
his  marvelous  instinct  of  relentless  imita- 
tion, even  as  to  voice.  I  hesitate  to  record 
the  endless  stories  of  his  misapplication  of 
that  faculty  which  were  then  current,  from 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    327 

the  one  of  the  laundryman  who  removed 
the  buttons  from  the  shirts  that  were  sent 
to  him  to  wash  that  they  might  agree  with 
the  condition  of  the  one  offered  him  as  a 
pattern  for  "doing  up,"  to  that  of  the 
unfortunate  employer  who,  while  showing 
John  how  to  handle  valuable  china  care- 
fully, had  the  misfortune  to  drop  a  plate 
himself  —  an  accident  which  was  followed 
by  the  prompt  breaking  of  another  by  the 
neophyte,  with  the  addition  of  "Oh,  hel- 
lee!"  in  humble  imitation  of  his  master. 
I  have  spoken  of  his  general  cleanliness ; 
I  am  reminded  of  one  or  two  exceptions, 
which  I  think,  however,  were  errors  of 
zeal.  His  manner  of  sprinkling  clothes  in 
preparing  them  for  ironing  was  peculiar. 
He  would  fill  his  mouth  with  perfectly  pure 
water  from  a  glass  beside  him,  and  then, 
by  one  dexterous  movement  of  his  lips  in 
a  prolonged  expiration,  squirt  the  water  in 
an  almost  invisible  misty  shower  on  the 
article  before  him.  Shocking  as  this  was 
at  first  to  the  sensibilities  of  many  Ameri- 
can employers,  it  was  finally  accepted,  and 
even  commended.  It  was  some  time  after 
this  that  the  mistress  of  a  household,  ad- 
miring the  deft  way  in  which  her  cook  had 


328    BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

spread  a  white  sauce  on  certain  dishes,  was 
cheerfully  informed  that  the  method  was 
"allee  same." 

His  recreations  at  that  time  were  chiefly 
gambling,  for  the  Chinese  theatre  wherein 
the  latter  produced  his  plays  (which  lasted 
for  several  months  and  comprised  the  events 
of  a  whole  dynasty)  was  not  yet  built.  But 
he  had  one  or  two  companies  of  jugglers 
who  occasionally  performed  also  at  Ameri- 
can theatres.  I  remember  a  singular  inci- 
dent which  attended  the  debut  of  a  newly 
arrived  company.  It  seemed  that  the  com- 
pany had  been  taken  on  their  Chinese  repu* 
tation  solely,  and  there  had  been  no  pre- 
vious rehearsal  before  the  American  stage 
manager.  The  theatre  was  filled  with  an 
audience  of  decorous  and  respectable  San 
Franciscans  of  both  sexes.  It  was  sud- 
denly emptied  in  the  middle  of  the  perform- 
ance; the  curtain  came  down  with  an 
alarmed  and  blushing  manager  apologizing 
to  deserted  benches,  and  the  show  abruptly 
terminated.  Exactly  what  had  happened 
never  appeared  in  the  public  papers,  nor  in 
the  published  apology  of  the  manager.  It 
afforded  a  few  days'  mirth  for  wicked  San 
Francisco,  and  it  was  epigrammatically 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN   SAN  FRANCISCO    329 

summed  up  in  the  remark  that  "no  woman 
could  be  found  in  San  Francisco  who  was 
at  that  performance,  and  no  man  who  was 
not."  Yet  it  was  alleged  even  by  John's 
worst  detractors  that  he  was  innocent  of 
any  intended  offense.  Equally  innocent, 
but  perhaps  more  morally  instructive,  was 
an  incident  that  brought  his  career  as  a 
singularly  successful  physician  to  a  disas- 
trous close.  An  ordinary  native  Chinese 
doctor,  practicing  entirely  among  his  own 
countrymen,  was  reputed  to  have  made  ex- 
traordinary cures  with  two  or  three  Ameri- 
can patients.  With  no  other  advertising 
than  this,  and  apparently  no  other  induce- 
ment offered  to  the  public  than  what  their 
curiosity  suggested,  he  was  presently  be- 
sieged by  hopeful  and  eager  sufferers. 
Hundreds  of  patients  were  turned  away 
from  his  crowded  doors.  Two  interpreters 
sat,  day  and  night,  translating  the  ills  of 
ailing  San  Francisco  to  this  medical  oracle, 
and  dispensing  his  prescriptions  —  usually 
small  powders  —  in  exchange  for  current 
coin.  In  vain  the  regular  practitioners 
pointed  out  that  the  Chinese  possessed  no 
superior  medical  knowledge,  and  that  their 
religion,  which  proscribed  dissection  and 


330    BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

autopsies,  naturally  limited  their  under- 
standing of  the  body  into  which  they  put 
their  drugs.  Finally  they  prevailed  upon 
an  eminent  Chinese  authority  to  give  them 
a  list  of  the  remedies  generally  used  in  the 
Chinese  pharmacopeia,  and  this  was  pri- 
vately circulated.  For  obvious  reasons  I 
may  not  repeat  it  here.  But  it  was  summed 
up  —  again  after  the  usual  Calif ornian  epi- 
grammatic style  —  by  the  remark  that 
"whatever  were  the  comparative  merits  of 
Chinese  and  American  practice,  a  simple 
perusal  of  the  list  would  prove  that  the 
Chinese  were  capable  of  producing  the  most 
powerful  emetic  known."  The  craze  sub- 
sided in  a  single  day;  the  interpreters  and 
their  oracle  vanished;  the  Chinese  doctors' 
signs,  which  had  multiplied,  disappeared, 
and  San  Francisco  awoke  cured  of  its  mad- 
ness, at  the  cost  of  some  thousand  dollars. 

My  Bohemian  wanderings  were  confined 
to  the  limits  of  the  city,  for  the  very  good 
reason  that  there  was  little  elsewhere  to  go. 
San  Francisco  was  then  bounded  on  one 
side  by  the  monotonously  restless  waters  of 
the  bay,  and  on  the  other  by  a  stretch  of 
equally  restless  and  monotonously  shifting 
sand  dunes  as  far  as  the  Pacific  shore. 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    331 

Two  roads  penetrated  this  waste:  one  to 
Lone  Mountain  —  the  cemetery;  the  other 
to  the  Cliff  House  —  happily  described  as 
"an  eight-mile  drive  with  a  cocktail  at  the 
end  of  it."  Nor  was  the  humor  entirely 
confined  to  this  felicitous  description.  The 
Cliff  House  itself,  half  restaurant,  half 
drinking  saloon,  fronting  the  ocean  and  the 
Seal  Rock,  where  disporting  seals  were  the 
chief  object  of  interest,  had  its  own  pecul- 
iar symbol.  The  decanters,  wine-glasses, 
and  tumblers  at  the  bar  were  all  engraved 
in  old  English  script  with  the  legal  initials 
"L.  S."  (Xocws  Sigilli),  —  "the  place  of 
the  seal." 

On  the  other  hand,  Lone  Mountain,  a 
dreary  promontory  giving  upon  the  Golden 
Gate  and  its  striking  sunsets,  had  little 
to  soften  its  weird  suggestiveness.  As  the 
common  goal  of  the  successful  and  unsuc- 
cessful, the  carved  and  lettered  shaft  of  the 
man  who  had  made  a  name,  and  the  staring 
blank  headboard  of  the  man  who  had  none, 
climbed  the  sandy  slopes  together.  I  have 
seen  the  funerals  of  the  respectable  citizen 
who  had  died  peacefully  in  his  bed,  and  the 
notorious  desperado  who  had  died  "with 
his  boots  on,"  followed  by  an  equally  im- 


332    BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

pressive  cortege  of  sorrowing  friends,  and 
often  the  self -same  priest.  But  more  awful 
than  its  barren  loneliness  was  the  utter  ab- 
sence of  peacefulness  and  rest  in  this  dismal 
promontory.  By  some  wicked  irony  of  its 
situation  and  climate  it  was  the  personifica- 
tion of  unrest  and  change.  The  incessant 
trade  winds  carried  its  loose  sands  hither 
and  thither,  uncovering  the  decaying  coffins 
of  early  pioneers,  to  bury  the  wreaths  and 
flowers,  laid  on  a  grave  of  to-day,  under 
their  obliterating  waves.  No  tree  to  shade 
them  from  the  glaring  sky  above  could  live 
in  those  winds,  no  turf  would  lie  there  to 
resist  the  encroaching  sand  below.  The 
dead  were  harried  and  hustled  even  in  their 
graves  by  the  persistent  sun,  the  unremit- 
ting wind,  and  the  unceasing  sea.  The  de- 
parting mourner  saw  the  contour  of  the 
very  mountain  itself  change  with  the  shift- 
ing dunes  as  he  passed,  and  his  last  look 
beyond  rested  on  the  hurrying,  eager  waves 
forever  hastening  to  the  Golden  Gate. 

If  I  were  asked  to  say  what  one  thing 
impressed  me  as  the  dominant  and  charac- 
teristic note  of  San  Francisco,  I  should  say 
it  was  this  untiring  presence  of  sun  and 
wind  and  sea.  They  typified,  even  if  they 


BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO    333 

were  not,  as  I  sometimes  fancied,  the  actual 
incentive  to  the  fierce,  restless  life  of  the 
city.  I  could  not  think  of  San  Francisco 
without  the  trade  winds;  I  could  not  ima- 
gine its  strange,  incongruous,  multigenerous 
procession  marching  to  any  other  music. 
They  were  always  there  in  my  youthful  re- 
collections; they  were  there  in  my  more 
youthful  dreams  of  the  past  as  the  myste- 
rious vientes  generales  that  blew  the  Philip- 
pine galleons  home. 

For  six  mouths  they  blew  from  the  north- 
west, for  six  months  from  the  southwest, 
with  unvarying  persistency.  They  were 
there  every  morning,  glittering  in  the 
equally  persistent  sunlight,  to  chase  the 
San  Franciscan  from  his  slumber;  they 
were  there  at  midday,  to  stir  his  pulses  with 
their  beat;  they  were  there  again  at  night, 
to  hurry  him  through  the  bleak  and  flaring 
gas-lit  streets  to  bed.  They  left  their  mark 
on  every  windward  street  or  fence  or  gable, 
on  the  outlying  sand  dunes;  they  lashed 
the  slow  coasters  home,  and  hurried  them 
to  sea  again;  they  whipped  the  bay  into 
turbulence  on  their  way  to  Contra  Costa, 
whose  level  shoreland  oaks  they  had  trimmed 
to  windward  as  cleanly  and  sharply  as  with 


334    BOHEMIAN  DAYS   IN  SAN  FRANCISCO 

a  pruning-shears.  Untiring  themselves, 
they  allowed  no  laggards;  they  drove  the 
San  Franciscan  from  the  wall  against  which 
he  would  have  leaned,  from  the  scant  shade 
in  which  at  noontide  he  might  have  rested. 
They  turned  his  smallest  fires  into  confla- 
grations, and  kept  him  ever  alert,  watchful, 
and  eager.  In  return,  they  scavenged  his 
city  and  held  it  clean  and  wholesome;  in 
summer  they  brought  him  the  soft  sea-fog 
for  a  few  hours  to  soothe  his  abraded  sur- 
faces; in  winter  they  brought  the  rains  and 
dashed  the  whole  coast-line  with  flowers, 
and  the  staring  sky  above  it  with  soft,  un- 
wonted clouds.  They  were  always  there  — 
strong,  vigilant,  relentless,  material,  un- 
yielding, triumphant. 


J£  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    000109655     1 


